Being the devoted fanboy that I am, I’ve been monitoring the InterWeb Thingie over the past week to see what people have been saying about James “Scotty” Doohan. For anyone who may be interested, here are the highlights:
Jul292005
Monthly Archives: July 2005
Jul282005
Of Local Interest…
For my local (or formerly local) readers, as well as anyone who may want a taste of the Utah action, here are a few interesting tidbits you may not have heard about:
Jul272005
How Could She Tell?
Yeah, yeah, I know: all these blog entries in a single day make it look like I’ve nothing better to do. Can’t be helped. Some days are just bloggier than others, and anyway, this is too funny not to share.
Jul272005
Define “Majority”
Did you see the recent poll that says 51% of all Americans now believe the White House “deliberately misled” us about those weapons of mass destruction? I’ve believed that all the way along, myself. Not that it matters much at this point.
Nevertheless, that poll number is interesting. Mark Evanier thinks so, too, and he’s raised a very good question in regards to it:
…as more and more of Bush’s negative ratings hit that magic number of half-the-nation-plus-one, I wonder about something. [I wonder] how many Bush supporters who thought 51% in the last election was a mandate or even a landslide will now argue that 51% or even anything below 55% or so isn’t really a majority.
For the record, I’m not trying to be a smartass here. I’m just considering a semantic point: in this age when nothing is free of the taint of political spin, when each side of the debate jockeys endlessly for the slightest edge over the other, can we even agree anymore what constitutes a majority? And what does it mean for our society if we can’t even find consensus on that?
Jul272005
Priorities
After a two-and-a-half year hiatus, America resumed manned spaceflight yesterday morning with a picture-perfect launch of space shuttle Discovery. You’d think that would be a fairly big deal, wouldn’t you? I certainly did. However, when I tuned into my 10 o’clock news last night, the lead stories were about an Amber Alert in the Sugarhouse area and a legal decision involving the goofball who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Yes, that’s right: instead of the cool video footage I hoped to see from Discovery‘s new external-tank-cam, I found myself looking once again at Utah’s overexposed ambassador of sticky namby-pambiness, Elizabeth’s father Ed. I wanted to scream. In fact, I think I may have, very quietly so as not to wake the S.O. in the other room. Ed Smart has that effect on me.
Now, I’m not saying these missing-children stories aren’t important, and I’m not naive enough to believe that everyone shares my interest or belief in the relevance of spaceflight. But I do believe our media’s choice of lead stories says something about where our culture is at right now, psychologically speaking, and it’s not a place I find particularly inspiring. Instead of looking upwards, we’re looking inwards. Instead of can-do optimism and a spirit of adventure, we feel fear and anxiety. And instead of celebrating what human beings can accomplish through pluck and applied intelligence, the news wallows in sensational stories about all the bad things that happen to little blond girls. (They’re always blond, have you noticed? You’d think that nothing ever happens to brunettes, redheads, or — gasp! — little-girls-of-color!)
I don’t know about you, but I personally find this a pretty damn depressing state of affairs. More later…
Jul252005
The Greatest Cartoon Ever! Well, One of Them, Anyhow…
If you’re one of those readers who obsessively catalogs all my various likes and dislikes as expressed here on the blog — and you know who you are — let me state for the record that I think the greatest short-form animated films of all time are the classic Looney Tunes cartoons produced by Warner Brothers from the 1930s through the 1960s. You know, the stuff we used to watch on the old Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Show on Saturday mornings.
Jul252005
Assorted Thoughts on Pioneer Day
Just in case you don’t know, today is a holiday in Utah. Well, technically speaking, yesterday was the holiday, but since that was a Sunday and nothing much is allowed to happen here on Sundays, the festivities were bumped to today.
This isn’t news to the locals who read this blog and who probably have the day off and won’t even see this entry until tomorrow. But if you live somewhere else and are not of The Body — apologies for the obscure Star Trek reference — let me explain:
Jul242005
I Made Love to a Screaming Brain!
Pop quiz: who’s the coolest actor working in the film industry today? I’m thinking of someone who has appeared in both blockbusters and art-house movies, a journeyman actor who both headlines and does small character roles, a man who commands a legion of die-hard fans, and who is the very definition of “suave.”
Am I referring to Sean Connery? Nah, I said someone who’s still working today, and all the signs indicate that Sir Sean has retired. Harrison Ford? Hasn’t worked in several years, apparently content to spend his days playing Rescue Ranger in his helicopter. Tom Cruise? Please… the word “suave” hardly applies to someone who publicly abuses a sofa in the name of mid-life-crisis/publicity-stunt love. No, the person I have in mind is someone you could actually imagine yourself hanging out with, a regular guy who just happens to have landed a job a whole lot of people think they want (but would probably hate if they got it), and who has managed, somehow, against all odds, to forge a decades-long career in an industry that is finished with most people within a couple of years.
I’m talking about the one and only… Bruce Campbell.
Jul222005
The Things We Forget We’ve Lost
Here’s another great quote from James Lileks, who frequently annoys me with his politics but is mucho sympatico when it comes to his sense of nostalgia, respect and curiosity about the past. He’s talking about a screen-capture from an old movie he viewed recently (the image helpfully appears in the body of the relevant Bleat, if you’re curious):
Theres the bygone world: the obligatory suit, the man sitting in a chair on the sidewalk selling the papers, the trolley in the background, the policebox from the 20s that’s been painted sixteen times. Instantly recognizable; you could fit in quickly. But utterly gone in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.
What did all the coins in their pockets look like? The trolley tokens, the brand of gum (okay, we can probably guess that), the feel of the pink and slightly furry paper receipt from the cleaners, the perfume of the woman who just passed, the odor of hair cream, and so forth. No one knew those things were important, and I suppose they weren’t – until they were gone and forgotten.
As he so often does, James has perfectly captured a notion I’ve often pondered but never gotten around to articulating: that history isn’t composed entirely of dates or headlines or politicians or battles. It’s isn’t even made up mostly of those things. The way I see it, history is made of details, thousands if not millions of tiny little experiential details just like the ones that surround us daily. We pay only passing attention to things like smells or environmental noise or even the materials that our clothes and various accessaries are made of, but if you think about it — really concentrate and think about it — you’ll realize that we are constantly losing little bits of the Way Things Used to Be, and most people probably aren’t even aware of it.
Jul202005
Happy Exploration Day!
The news about James Doohan diverted my attention earlier, but I couldn’t let today pass without acknowledging something very important: this is the 36th anniversary of the day human beings first set foot on another world, namely Earth’s own Moon.