The one you've all been waiting for

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So long to the Thin White Duke

You all know I left home at fifteen. The course of my life has been steered entirely from that one act. Looking back I think it was actually a perfectly sensible decision, but at the time... well... best not to think too much about it. I went from being a rather sheltered child to being the only one in charge in the space of a week. (I was a ward of the state, but being in the "care" of social workers and being on my own amounted to the same thing.)

At the time I mentally divided my life into two parts, the before leaving and the after, and it is still a pretty sound description. On the cusp of my 50th birthday, I am now at last at peace with it all. But at the time... Hm.

There were a lot of people and things that helped me survive along the way, and it might sound weird, but Bowie's music was one of them. I was raised very strangely by a woman I now understand was a pathological narcissist. One of the things narcissistic mothers do, especially to daughters, is to try to insert their own personality into the child, to make her a living replica of herself a kind of puppet. I had no sense of identity when I was 15 and broke away from her. Music was one of the ways I started the process of creating a person, an identity that was separate from my mother's.

One day, I went to visit my friend and she played her Bowie albums, starting chronologically with Hunky Dory.


It was the first time I'd come across something that I really liked that my mother knew nothing about. It was the start of me becoming me. It took a long time, but here we are.

David Bowie's music, for the next ten years, was playing as the soundtrack of that entire development, and will forever stand in my mind for that period of creating independence and identity.

Which is a bit funny considering ...




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I have just found the perfect television show

The final television show. The ultimate fulfilment - the Thomistic perfection - of all television shows. After this, there will be no need to watch any other television show, ever again.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Hilary, everyone knows that the perfect television show was Firefly. That was the peak. After Firefly there was simply no point in watching television again." And you would be right... except for one thing. Oh come on, it's the obvious thing. 14 episodes. Ugh. Firefly was not the greatest television show of all time. It was the greatest television tease of all time. I hate Firefly for that. Hate it.

So now you're thinking, "OK, OK, maybe not Firefly then. We've all felt the pain. But what about Fringe, Hilary? What. About. Fringe?"

OK, you may have something there. Fringe, after all, had Walter Bishop, the greatest mad scientist of all time, complex relationships and parallel universes AND Buckaroo Banzai. Of course it's up there. Of course we want to buy it all on DVD. Of course we need a Fringe movie franchise. All these are a given.

But were there pies? Was the whole show all about pies and death and resurrection?

And did it have Lee Pace?


This guy? (Yes, yes I know. We all want to lynch Peter Jackson for his bloated Hobbit desecration, but seriously, who wouldn't give just about anything to meet Thranduil IRL?)

I give you... (wait for it!)





Pushing Daisies


You're welcome.



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What to do with the January 2th holiday

I think I've mentioned that my favourite genre of film is Apocalypse. The Bomb, zombies (supernatural and viral), robots, AI super-computers, vampires, pandemic viruses, asteroids, comets, volcanoes, the sudden totally unexplained failure of all plant life (which is as close to an explanation as we got from The Most Depressing Book/Movie Ever Made Road), political dystopias, talking apes, pod-people aliens, tripod aliens, Triffids, long-forgotten buried dormant dragons, total economic collapse due to Evil Capitalists (too numerous to link), sudden ice ages triggered by industrial emissions reducing the salinity of the Gulf Stream (science!!), sudden unexplained plant-sentience (not making that one up, "They're mean, they're green and they're mad as hell..."), titanic reversals of the earth's polarity, titanic reversals of the earth's magma layer, overpopulation, underpopulation, and rampant Terry Gilliam... I love em all.

I direct your time-wasting morbid procrastinating attention to The Apocalypse Index at TV Tropes website...

possibly the only site on the net even more addictive than Facebook.



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Saturday goofing off

OK, so you know that thing where people sing the funny weird lyrics they think is in the song just from hearing it for years, and it's hilarious because it's all gibberish and nonsense? Well, I guess They Might be Giants thought that was hilarious too...

"I'm sick of this beeswax...I'm sick of these second-story Sleestaks..." Oh me too! (Bonus Gen-X nerd-points if you know what a Sleestak is without Googling.)

I get it, Internet, I really do. Gaza, Iraq, ISIS, ebola, Synod/schism, gay marriage, Siberian Cthulhu... it's all comin' for us. And I realise we ought to be running around outside and pointing up at the sky and screaming, and falling to our knees and begging God to spare us and stuff... but I figure if it's all going to come crashing down and we all have to go live in the Mad Max world for the rest of our unpleasant and short lives, we might as well get as much fooling around and goofing off done as possible while we still can, right?


Points of interest for the day:

- So, watching archaeology videos on YouTube you often have to watch dumb adverts that have become my main means of keeping up with the weird crap Modernia gets up to. Today's was an advert from a guy who works as a "designer" for Lego telling us all about the latest thing from Lego, which is a Lego Mini Cooper... yah, that's the latest thing the kids will love. A Lego Mini Cooper.

What the hell, Lego? Why do you even have "designers"? How come Lego now only comes in these kit things that make you build what they say. I thought the point of legos was that you built stuff you made up yourself. Now it's all "Lego-X wing" and "Lego Ferrari". What's fun about that? Why not just give the kid an X-wing?

I realise that Community is a show for Gen-Xers and ... whatever the thing is that came after us... and it's all about how none of us ever managed to grow up and we all want to go back to building blanket forts and playing paintball in high school, but srsly, do kids even still build blanket forts? Are we the last generation to know how? Do they even still make space ships and time machines out of cardboard boxes? Or is it all Lego pre-fab kits for building little models of the latest iPad?

Oh, and apparently people take this so seriously that there are a dozen "review" videos on YT by grownups talking about the Lego Mini Cooper. No, I'm not even making that up to be ironic.

Every time I can be bothered to look at it, Modernia makes me anxious and confused.

~ * ~

This picture of Malta. You're welcome.

~ * ~

- Wait, what?! They banned Lawn Darts? Seriously?! What's next, Croquet? Because it's a mean game and kids could get mad and belt each other over the head with the mallets?

Back in the 1970s (and earlier), parents didn’t stress about our health and safety as much as they do today. It’s not that they cared less – they just didn’t worry compulsively about it.

I've got an idea why. The parents of young children today are my age and a bit younger, and we were all raised in the Cold War thinking we're all about to die. No wonder we're all jumpy as water in a hot fry pan.

(Also, all morning I've been laughing out loud, for realsies, every time I read the phrase, "...belt each other over the heads with the mallets..." because I'm evil or something, I guess.)

~ * ~

- Here's a thing about Rome's sculptural skeletons. Yep, yep, yep. These things are TOTally awesome, and they're all over the place in the Festering Old Town.

~ * ~

- Also, here's something that will make you jealous. Lemon Cisk. (you pronounce the "ci" in Malti, as in Italian, like "ch" in "church.") I guzzled quite a lot of this stuff, and discovering it was a revelation. There's only one drawback (well, two if you count the sugar) and that's that it is only sold in Malta. Sorry.

Moretti makes a lemon lager that I tried the other day, but it wasn't as good. Not beery enough and too sweet.

I suppose I could buy a regular beer and add some in a glass. I realise it would be cheaper and easier than moving to Malta. But...

Maybe I'll just put lemon in my beer in summer.

(Yes, Malta is that great. In fact, wait, the video ad makes it look way more boring than it is.)

~ * ~

One last thing: Hey BillyHW... you still out there, boy? Shout if you're still alive.



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Bustin' a White n' Nerdy move.

This was 2007, and the guy was already in his fifties.

In. his. fifties!



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Crushed on Donny Osmond

I have a crush on Donny Osmond, and I don’t care who knows it

After years of being THE teen boy-king, with the millions of screaming teenage girl fans around the world, he was suddenly a joke. Indeed, I remember the girls in school mocking him (which was a pretty unattractive thing for them to do, come to think of it). He wasn’t just forgotten, as the video says, but hated. And I think it has taken me until now to understand, to see why that particular brand of sneering hatred seems so familiar.

I listened to this documentary this weekend while puttering about my flat, and it struck me that neither Piers nor Donny himself had completely understood why the public had rejected him so powerfully.

...

Donny Osmond, with his whole family, represented something more than just silly teeny-bopper pop songs. They were sold as the “clean” pop act of their time, happy, innocent and cheerful. They made their name not only as a talented family act, but as one dedicated to the old fashioned religious-based virtues that had been hugely popular since the end of World War II. They were, in fact, the living embodiment of an innocent enjoyment of youth and, yes, I’ll say it, romantic love, that itself turned to “industry poison” at exactly that historical moment.

All growed up.



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I knew liked her

Gretchen Wilson says, enough with the "animal rights" stuff. Why don't you go protect the humans for a change, hippies!





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Gen-X test

OK, hands up everyone who used to get up early, voluntarily, before school to watch Starblazers.

Come on, admit it. Get em up.

Even then it was like a countersign for nerds. I met my first boyfriend in high school using it. In art class one day, this cute boy suddenly popped up and said, "Hey, anyone watch Starblazers this morning?" I knew I had a winner.

Well, they've remade it.

Shinier, cooler, but still Starblazers.



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It's SO good to be back on the bridge

Star Trek Continues E01 "Pilgrim of Eternity" from Star Trek Continues on Vimeo.

Apparently I'm not the only die-hard fan out there. This, at last, really is the real "next generation".

It's astonishing what you can do with modern technology. It's ... perfect. In absolutely every detail, music, lighting, the look of it. A tiny bit CGI-ish and green-screeny here and there, but otherwise, note perfect.

And the acting, though a bit patchy, is amazing in places. Vic Mignogna appears to be just channeling Shatner's Kirk. In fact, I'd say it's just pure Kirk. Every twitch, flicker; the walk, the shoulders, way he sat in the chair. It's almost creepy.

And yes, the reason the guy playing Scotty looks so familiar is that he's Christopher Doohan.

This seems to be their first full hour-long episode, but there's more here. And it has received rave reviews, so we can hope for more.



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There is something wrong with my brain

Or, I could be a girl, I don't know which.

But whenever I watch this video, I usually cry when the elephant busts out of jail, goes home and finds his friends again.

I was first introduced to Coldplay by best-friend Vicky, my go-to girl for all things pop-culture, in the following conversation several years ago:

"That was nice, what band was it?"

"Coldplay".

"Ah, well, they're really good."

"Yes, they are. Quite good."

"Are they a local group?"

"No, I think they're British."

"Doing well? Are they popular?"

"They're the new U2."

"Oh, good for them."

Vicky taught me everything I know about being cool.

~ * ~

Apparently a few other people also like it. It's been viewed a simply amazing 222,411,796 times! Holy Cats! I guess they are doing well.

~ * ~

First day in nearly three weeks I can walk normally. The day after I arrived in Tranna, my back totally seized up and I spent the entire time walking like a penguin and yelping in agony if anyone touched me.

This is one problem I can't put down to old age. I did my back in the first time in the fifth grade playing floor hockey. (Yes, yes, go ahead with your Canadian jokes, I'll wait.) I was covering goal, and I thought the ball was going one way and it went the other. The top half of me went the first way and the bottom half followed the ball, and the rest of me landed face down on the floor screaming.

Months of physio made it better, but it's been touchy ever since. And unpredictable. I once got six weeks of agony for reaching down to the kitchen floor to pick up a plastic bag.

I got accupuncture in Tranna before facing the 9 hour overnight plane ride home, and it helped (that, and the codeine). But it's still been another few days to become fully functional.

The accupuncture guy said it was the abrupt transition from roasting hot Roman weather, to the ice-box air conditioning of the plane, then all the AC in Tranna: one minute in the cold and the next out in the heat again. He said that Chinese people come over to Canada from nice warm China and get all sorts of AC related injuries. Back and neck mostly. He said it'd start getting better as soon as I got back into the warm.

I've looked up exercises to do to strengthen my back, and the Francesco the Friendly Pilates Guy said to do them every day, but...well, it's me, so...

Anyway, If anyone has any suggestions I'm interested. (Anything but yoga. Don't hold with that New Age guff.)

Even when I'm not crippled, my lower back is always slightly sore, always stiff. It's always difficult to get moving. Loosens up once I'm on the go, but it's always a problem. Nothing worth wasting money at the doctor's for, but maybe there's something someone knows.



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Everybody need see Buckaroo

Before Firefly, this was the awesomest.


Lectroids from Planet 10 by way of the 8th dimension.



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Walter meets Buckaroo Banzai; talks about God

Why I loved this show.

Oh, Walter, how I miss you.

Here's the song Buckaroo was playing at the beginning of that scene.

I've been on this huge 80s synthpop kick lately. Whatever happened to Gary Numan, anyway? I heard he quit showbiz and got a respectable job.



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It's Girl Band Thursday!

The other Bangles song.



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Gorn Fight!!

This one's for you, Fr. Paul.



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Flashback

When I was fifteen, I left home and was made a ward of the state. In effect, this meant that no one was supervising me, or really ever would again. It was 1981, and my rule was simple: if you could get away with it, you should. This meant, of course, one had to experiment a lot to see what was possible.


Applying this rule, I figured if I could get into a club, it meant I was old enough.

My moral life has developed a bit since then, but in many ways, this still the basic gist.



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The glamour of evil

One of my favourite Peter Bishop scenes: "Hi, I'm the Bad Cop, and we're going to have a discussion now."

I've been thinking a lot lately on the notion of attraction. What attracts us, and from what do we naturally recoil and why. And I've got to say, I really do get the appeal of the Bad Boys. Mmm..hmm!

Don't worry, Peter reforms by the end of the series, and tells his father he loves him, rejects evil and does the right thing. But the major conflict of the whole show, was between Peter and his conscience. He spent most of his life solving problems in a more ... err, direct than orthodox manner, and the appeal of this for most of us who do try to follow the rules most of the time is certainly strong. We can't help but respond with a little cheer at Peter's correction, "No, you can't do that."

Ultimately, though, Peter gets pushed past his limits with the anger that boils away all the time inside, and his lust for revenge becomes all-consuming. Does he pull back, at the last possible moment, from the edge? In the last few episodes, will he finally choose The Real and reject the glamour of evil?

Well, it's TV, so... you know...



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Finale

Very happily surprised, btw, at the finale of Fringe.

I won't give it away, but they did actually manage to do everything they needed to do.

Here's a song.


I really was worried, it being a JJ Abrams thing, that the ending was going to be a disaster. I was expecting to get Galactica-ed again, and have it ending, as a friend said, with discovering that the entire series was really just Walter hallucinating for five years while sitting in the mental institution he was sent to in 1985 after his son died.

But no. It was great. And wrenching. And wonderful.



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Three left.

(Love this song!)



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A fitting tribute

...and I agree, it's a pity we don't make music this big any more for TV.

The theme music is unmistakable: Four mysterious, tentative notes descend in pings, building to a fanfare that heralds the slowly approaching vessel. As the brasses gather excitement, the giant ship gathers speed, cruising past the starry backdrop, an exhortation to venture on to strange new worlds. And then the voice-over: "Space, the final frontier…"

It is, of course, the opening of the original "Star Trek," the most famously cultish TV series of all time. When it debuted in 1966, it was unlike anything previously seen on the small screen, and the music was no exception. In fact, on a show that had an average per-episode budget of less than $200,000, music was often essential to evoking the necessary sense of wonder.

H/T to our longtime bloggie friend Six-Bells John




BTW: regular readers may find it shocking, shocking! that I own only Season 1 of TOS...(Jingle bells...jingle bells...)





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