Vulcan's Glory and Other Relics

When I was nine or ten, the local UHF station showed Star Trek every night at 6:00. I never missed it. Willingly, that is, as dinner often interfered.

My two best friends and I sometimes assumed Star Trek roles while playing together. Our parts were permanently assigned: they were Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, respectively, and I was Mr. Spock. We had a cloaked starship in a corner of the schoolyard, a la Star Trek IV, and amused ourselves by telling incredulous fellow students about it.

When we exchanged gifts at the great Christmas sleepover of 1989, one of my friends gave me several Star Trek novels, which in those days could be acquired via the rotating rack in our small-town grocery store. Stop a moment and reflect on that. In 1989, you could walk into a tiny Super S Foods in rural South Texas and buy a stack of novels based on the series canceled in 1969. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

But I digress. The Christmas gift included Vulcan's Glory by D. C. Fontana, one of the best writers of the original series. I still have it in my possession, a bit tattered from riding around in my backpack for weeks, perhaps, but intact nonetheless.

I reread Vulcan's Glory this week, having gotten it out to show my kids. That's a scan of my copy above. We had just watched "Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel," two of my favorite episodes; Vulcan's Glory is in some ways a prequel to both.

The book isn't what you'd call high literature or original science fiction, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable. It takes place during Christopher Pike's tenure as captain of the Enterprise and fills in some of Spock's backstory. Fontana is credited as the writer for "Journey to Babel" and numerous other episodes, and contributed to many more; she seems responsible for much of the subtlety of character and cultural depth in the original series, especially in Mr. Spock, for whom she appears to have harbored considerable affection.

I've always been drawn to Spock. He's supremely logical but also deeply contemplative, and his character makes clear how naturally the two qualities go together. He's straightforward to the point of awkwardness, sternly self-disciplined, reserved but full of deep feeling, capable of love and self-sacrifice, and, despite his Vulcan gravity, possessed of a dry sense of humor. He's a person of mixed race species, accepted neither on Vulcan nor among humans, at home only in Starfleet. Though acutely conscious of propriety and tradition, he rebelled against his father by joining Starfleet, yet deliberately pushes himself to be more Vulcan than full-blooded Vulcans. In a way, Spock is Star Trek. And we owe him largely to Dorothy Christine Fontana.

The trouble with reading a Star Trek novel is that the narrative liberties and cost-saving shortcuts taken by a fifty-minute show become glaringly obvious in a long written work. It's a little odd, for instance, to encounter a carefully written, meditative novel premised on the ludicrous notion that persons of different species, from different planets, could have a child together. They don't even have the same anatomy, for crying out loud! And then there's teleportation. The plot hinges on a lost Vulcan relic which is discovered on a desert planet and taken aboard the Enterprise. Maybe this is just the Catholic in me talking, but I suspect that a real Vulcan would find the the notion of "beaming up" a relic deeply repugnant. It would disrupt the object's physical continuity, which is what makes a relic a relic in the first place. And that only makes me start thinking uncomfortable thoughts about the philosophical implications of teleporting persons.

Fortunately I read the book in about three sittings, so these misgivings didn't have time to lessen my joy.

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Part of what sparked our renewed interest in things Star Trek was our visit several weeks ago to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, where we whiled away the afternoon after White Sands got too hot. They had a lot of model rockets and whatnot, and that was all great, I guess, but what really delighted us was their collection of Star Trek memorabilia.

Here, for example, we have the spears used in "The Galileo Seven":

And here's the original letter from producer Robert H. Justman regarding the donation:

Next we have what appears to be Donald Trump's hairpiece:

But guess again! It's a tribble!!!

They also had the model of the Enterprise used in "Catspaw":

Not something I'd go out of my way for, I think, but it was fun to see some (unbeamed) relics in such an unexpected place. I'm also happy to report that my horde of brainwashed Trekkies whom I shall one day release upon the unsuspecting world beloved children recognized most of the episodes on display.

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Among my old books I also found The Three-Minute Universe, another Christmas gift. It was my very favorite thing to read for a while, as you can tell from the tattered quality of my copy to the right. I used to have more original series books bought with my own money, but I suppose I just kept these two for sentimental value and discarded the rest long ago.

My buddy also gave me a Next Generation novel, but I naturally got rid of that thing long ago. Ugh! I just never did hold with that upstart series. My other buddy now speaks highly of Deep Space 9. Back when it came out I found it profoundly boring, but maybe I'd enjoy it now.

Anyway, I'll probably try reading The Three-Minute Universe again sometime soon. I look forward to the pleasurable mix of guilt and enjoyment.

Ashes to Ashes

Today I'd like to talk about a man. We all know who he is. Some think of him as a great man; none more so than himself. He is, in many ways, the man for our times. True, he's not the most intelligent person. He's not the most emotionally mature. Most of his injuries are self-inflicted. He's apt to say whatever comes into his head, and his decisions reflect an extreme lack of forethought. His words and actions are frequently reprehensible, sometimes even disgusting. He's a bit of a racist, a bit of a xenophobe, a bit of a sexist. He thinks very highly of his attractiveness to women of all ages, and feels welcome to take what he wants when he sees it. Still, time and again, he's proven his detractors wrong. He's proven that he does have it in him to be a winner.

This is Donald Trump, the President of the United States.
He is not the subject of this post.

On Reptoids from Alpha Draconis

In keeping with my time-honored tradition of writing a blog post whenever I encounter a network of ideas connected in any way, shape, or form with speculative fiction, but also in keeping with my equally time-honored tradition of not commenting on current affairs, I hereby commence a post about

THE REPTOIDS AMONG US

without explaining what, precisely, has motivated me to pursue this particular avenue of discovery.

I will tell you what set me upon the path, however.

One day at the office, whilst devouring the salami sandwich, granola bar, and green apple that constitute my lunch, I happened to watch a Mental Floss YouTube video about weird conspiracy theories. Among the factoids presented therein is the assertion that 12 million Americans believe that shape-shifting lizard people secretly hold the reins of world government. This is according to Public Policy Polling.

Now, if a survey company called me to ask whether I believe shape-shifting lizard people are in control of the government, I would respond with an enthusiastic YES, YES, I DO STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT. And surely I'm not alone in my love of trolling the strangers who call my house to ask stupid questions. So, perhaps the number is a little misleading. Still, there must be some truly devout lizard-people believers, right? A little googling (not for the faint of heart in this case) would seem to confirm that, yes, there are some believers out there.

The leading proponent is one David Icke, British ex-footballer and conspiracy theorist. He asserts that reptilians (or reptoids, as I prefer to call them) from Alpha Draconis have been selectively breeding the human race since its inception, creating the Babylonian Brotherhood, a hybrid race of Illuminati who now control the world. He suggests that the aliens first came to earth in search of monatomic gold, which enhances the capacity of their nervous systems ten thousandfold.

Hm. A race of superintelligent extraterrestrials who inhabited earth long before man's coming and now treat the human race as a pet project and secretly orchestrate events from behind the scenes? Remind you of anything? Here we have the connection with my blog's purported focus. It has been suggested that the Reptoid Hypothesis owes a large debt to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith; they, in their turn, took much of their material from nineteenth-century theosophical writings on Atlantis and Lemuria.

The idea that disguised aliens secretly control everything of course puts me in mind of John Carpenter's They Live (1988). I love eighties sci-fi actioners, and They Live is one of the most enjoyable. The screenplay was written by Carpenter under the pseudonym Frank Armitage, an allusion to Dr. Henry Armitage of "The Dunwich Horror." Like most Carpenter assays, They Live has a B-movie feel, but it's also hilarious, sharply satirical, and eerily contemporary. It takes place in a not-so-distant future when the middle class is being squeezed out of existence, the underemployed live in shantytowns on vacant lots, racial discord and police brutality are on the rise, and a media-induced malaise seems to have overcome the human race. One day, a down-and-outer (played by pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of cheap-looking sunglasses that let him see a whole new reality. Turns out the rich and powerful are all aliens or people who have sold out to the aliens. This leads to one of the greatest and cheesiest one-liners in action sci-fi history: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Now, it's one of my little pleasures in life to post extremely weird links and opaque commentary on Facebook to see if my aunts, cousins, in-laws, coworkers, and high school friends will think I've gone off my rocker. (I used to go in for politics, but eventually you learn what everybody is going to say, so why bother?) So I recently posted the above picture of George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Queen Elizabeth II as reptoids. Imagine my surprise when, immediately afterward, the "people also posted" thing popped up with three stories about...Donald Trump.

Let me pause here to assure whomever might be reading this that I, for one, welcome our new reptilian overlords.

Now, what's interesting to me about They Live (which is awesome and you should watch soon if you haven't yet) is that it appeared shortly before David Icke began his career as New Age prophet. Was it an influence on his ideas? Icke is also supposed to have been influenced by 1940s non-fiction writer Mark Doreal, who took some of his ideas from Robert E. Howard. So apparently there's been a strange cross-fertilization between weird horror and cranky fringe conspiracy theories. Each influences the other; both grow together.

For all that, though, there's a distinct psychological line between the weird horror fan and the wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. For the former, there's a big element of play, of fun. The latter is in deadly earnest. I would even assert that the fan is the unlikeliest person to go down that rabbit hole. They're inoculated by their sense of humor.

But what does make someone start thinking that the celebrities and politicians they see on TV and in the news are all reptoids in disguise? That, I'm afraid, is a question above my pay grade, so I'll just conclude with a word from our sponsor:

ADDENDUM: D'oh! While writing this, I forgot to mention another ridiculous eighties movie making use of the same idea: the inimitable The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), which pits humans and Black Lectroids against the evil Red Lectroids of Planet 10. Less pointed, much weirder, with an awesome cast. I'll have to start reviewing fantasy and sci-fi schlock from the eighties sometime soon.

Donald Trump and Me

All my life I've been telling myself that one day – one day – I would share the front-page news with Donald Trump. Well, my friends, that day has arrived.

Yes, that's the nice thing about living in an out-of-the-way place. There's a pretty low bar for making the news. As you can see, I even made it above the fold. (Well, partially.) Which underscores something that seems rather quaint by today's standards: where I live, if you want to know what's going on, you have to get a print newspaper subscription. Crazy!

The article is in Q&A format. Even if you read this blog only on rare occasions, most of it will be no news to you. It gets my workplace wrong (I work at a university, not a junior college), but that only serves to keep my real-life persona shrouded in shadows of disinformation, much like Batman.

I offer the article mainly as a curiosity, because I feel fairly certain that this is the first time a magazine like Beneath Ceaseless Skies and (possibly) the Hugo award have made the news in my region.

Now, the last time I wrote about my art show, I pontificated in a faintly self-congratulatory manner on the fact that there is no bookstore within a couple hundred miles of Del Rio. Here you can see that I was not entirely correct, as there was in fact a book sale at the "mall" (ahem) that Saturday. I happened upon it while we were at said mall for the tax-free weekend mentioned on Page 1. (Because, for us, Del Rio is the Big City. I mean, they even have a Starbucks and a Chick-fil-A now.)

Whilst perusing the wares, I ran into the reporter who wrote the article posted here. He told me he had read "The Scale-Tree" and enjoyed it. So there: I gained a reader for BCS in the middle Rio Grande border region.

Also whilst perusing the wares I suffered a small indignity. One of the book-sale ladies, seeing me there with my kids, kept pushing children's books on me. She went so far as to hand my kids book after book (all crummy picture books) and try to convince them to buy them. She kept hovering by us and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Finally, trying to be as civil as I could, I told her that, if I wanted to buy my kids books, I was capable of making the selections myself (with their input, of course), and also that I intended to wait for my wife, who was elsewhere at the time.

Not to be put off, she offered to take the books she'd handed us and keep them at the table, "if," she said, "you're really coming back, and not just saying that."

"No thanks," I said. "We'll get them later if we want them."

"If you just don't have the money," she said, "I'll pay for them myself." (They cost a quarter apiece.)

Through gritted teeth: "No. Thank you."

So I guess I come across as a deadbeat who lies to book-sale ladies, keeps his little waifs starved of books, and probably beats his dog every weekend. In reality, my kids have two bookcases filled to capacity, and I have three large bookcases filled to capacity, plus an antique secretary full of books, plus a shelf of art books in my studio, plus two large bookcases full of math books and great books in my office, plus several boxes of books in a closet, plus a bunch more under my bed. So I'm just kind of selective about what makes the cut. (I also don't have a dog, though I do have a pretty brown hen who comes into the house, flaps up to my shoulder, and clucks tenderly to me.)

But I guess it serves me right after my back-patting. Here's these ladies, working as volunteers, and by that simple act probably doing more for literacy in the region than I ever could. So here's to you, book-sale ladies. We're all in this together!

(For the record, we ended up buying two Laura Ingalls Wilder books, The Sign of the Beaver, Julie of the Wolves, a compact Modern Library edition of Pascal's Pensées and Provincial Letters, and a large book of botanical illustrations, all hardcover. Somehow this ended up costing exactly $4.00.)