“But now, you just make the thing you want to make. And if there’s an audience for it, great. And if not, you still had the pleasure and joy of making exactly what you wanted to make.”
my headcanon is that Capable is the only one of the Wives who actively thinks about/wants to have kids (obviously it’s A Thing for all of them, given what they were expected to do, but after they retake the Citadel, she’s the only one who still actively hopes to be a mom.) so she helps take care of the Dag’s kid (with Cheedo’s help) when the Dag’s not feeling up to it, and since she takes up nursing she ends up with a little gaggle ot Wretched children dogging her heels everywhere she goes. eventually she becomes known as “Mother” to everyone because she’s got so many kids (some of them are orphans; some have lost track of their parents, or vice versa; some are former War Pups who are still small enough to need looking after.) none of them are her biological offspring, but that’s okay; she’s not looking for a husband anyway. some stick around for a little while and some stay until they’re grown up. either way, every child in the Citadel knows that if you need someone to take care of you, you go to Capable, and she has a pair of open arms for you. eventually she does have a biokid of her own (no one knows, or especially cares who the father is; it’s her kid) but it’s just the latest in her long, long line of descendants. they all refer to themselves as hers, and when they have children of their own, she becomes their grandmother as well. a few generations after the Wives, she’s become the First Mother or All-Mother: just about everyone in the Citadel can trace their family line back to a child who was frightened and alone and found a home with her. eventually, she becomes almost a mythical figure; expectant mothers pray to her for a healthy baby, and children who get lost in the desert tell stories about a red-haired woman who appears to lead them home.
Name: John Nickname: Hm. The closest thing I have to one, probably, is that once in a while someone who knows me from Tumblr will refer to me IRL as ‘lies’ (which I then find out about because they’ve done it during a video or audio recording that I then see/hear). I like it when that happens. Birthday: March 22 Star sign: Aries Gender: Male Height: 6′ 1″ Sexual Orientation: Straight Favorite Color: Blue Lucky Number: Um, 4? Last thing I googled: this is not a comment in french Words that come to mind: Salad. Awake. Words. Dream. Number of blankets I sleep with: At the moment, one fluffy down comforter Favorite fictional characters: Mowgli. Disko Troop. Faramir. Kip Russell. Elizabeth Bennet. Anne Elliot. Lilo. Rapunzel. Favorite famous people: Lana Wachowski, Tom Hanks, Lupita Nyong’o Favorite bands: Cocteau Twins, Crowded House, Curve, Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Sigur Rós, Stars of the Lid, The Weepies Last movie I saw: Mad Max: Fury Road Dream trip: A circumnavigation on a well-found sailboat with a good crew Dream job: Perl programming on a smallish team making something non-icky
Well… I tell everyone to start with TOS because it’s my baby and because the later shows ALL reference it in some way from time to time (the recurring tribble episodes, the mirrorverse episodes, etc.) but in actuality I guess you could start with whichever one fits your personality best (because the beautiful thing is that they’re all really different)
Like, if you like complex political drama, maybe Deep Space Nine is the place for you.
Enjoy cranky captains with child aversion, androids exploring their inner humanity, sassy lady doctors, and LeVar Burton (because who doesn’t love LeVar Burton????) – try The Next Generation! The thing about TNG is that it is much more serious and dramatic in tone than TOS, but it is still lighthearted at times. The episodes with Q are the best because he basically shows up at random moments just to fuck with everyone and hit on Picard like a creeper. (Seriously he quotes Shakespeare and Jean Luc is just like – *perpetual eyeroll*)
Personally I did not enjoy Enterprise, but if you want to start at the canonical BEGINNING of EVERYTHING, that’s a good place to start. It’s a prequel to TOS and is set in the 22nd century.
Then there’s Voyager, which takes place in relatively the same timespan as TNG and DS9 (24th century) and deals with the mission of the Voyager crew after they become lost in space. It was never really my bag, but I like Janeway. I relate to her strongly on a coffee drinker level. “There’s coffee in that nebula!”
Honestly, the TOS movies are some of my faves because old married spirk but if you’re going to watch them (and you should) you really need to start with TOS.
As far as the movies themselves go, Wrath of Khan is LIFE (Filled with classical literature references and Spirk ANGSTTTTT.) The Voyage Home is funny camp but also wonderful because it’s about saving the planet (i.e. save the whales) and that’s just a beautiful thing. It is also super Old Married Spirk-centric and I know what I’m about, son.
So I guess at the end of the day, my answer is START WITH TOS because it is delightfully philosophical and asks the timelessly deep questions like:
Why does racism exist?
Will we have grown out of greed and petty hatred by the 23rd century? (The show proceeds as if we have, and it’s a beautiful thing)
Can we, as a species, ever learn to embrace our differences rather than being divided by them?
But then also is super campy and fun at times (for a nice balance) so you get things like:
Unicorn dogs… in SPAAAACEEEE
2 Kirks + 1 Spock (oh ho ho i can’t tell you what i’m thinking right now)
TRIBBLES
COSPLAY IN SPACE (every time they beam down to an alien planet that is inexplicably a representation of Earth’s past and they have to dress in the attire of the locals – 1920′s gangsters, evil space Nazis, etc.)
And also just in general you will fall in LOVE with the characters because:
Jim Kirk is a beautiful ray of sunshine who loves books, flowers, and stepping up to defend anyone who is being marginalized or subjected to bigotry. In the second episode, he literally shuts down a fuckboy who is being super creepy with a female crew member who has made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with his inappropriate advances. The boy complains about being friendzoned and Jim is like, “LOOK SON, YOU CAN’T BE DOING THIS SHIT – YOU NEED TO R-E-S-P-E-C-T HER” and it’s amazing.
Spock is a literal awkward baby giraffe that you will want to clutch to your bosom and protect from the world. He starts out thinking he’ll never fit in anywhere because of his mixed race and inability to be fully Human or Vulcan, but then he meets Jim “blessed bundle of rainbows” Kirk and finds a true friend who completely accepts him as he is and can bEAT HIM AT CHESS which is totally a turn on for spock, fight me on this BECAUSE HE’S A BIG TIME GENIUS AND A NERD and it’s the greatest love story of all tiiimmeeee
Leonard “Bones” McCoy is the sweetest Southern Belle to ever traipse through space. He HATES being in space, is afraid and paranoid of everything, but he does it anyway because he loves and cares SO deeply about helping people. He expresses his love through the grumpy exterior of a man who gets frustrated when he can’t immediately solve everyone’s problems and ailments, and that is something I relate to on a spiritual level. Also Bones and Spock’s sassy banter is LIFE.
Literally every character in this show is to die for. Uhura is a BAMF who is fantastic at her job and can successfully perform half the jobs on the bridge when she needs to in a pinch) loves to sing and casually flirts with Spock (because she knows he secretly enjoys it but it’s all in good fun, they’re good friends and they bond over their mutual love of music and AUGH I just can’t with them; they’re too cute)
Sulu is a dorky history buff who loves fencing and chivalry and is a bOTANIST in his free time and super nerds out over plants and antiques and UGH I CAN’T SULU IS THE SWEETEST BABY
Scotty is super invested in his Scottish heritage and enjoys a good drink and LOVES THE ENTERPRISE SO MUCH like she’s a beautiful lady whose honor must be defended when anyone insults her
Chekov is the little lovable piece of trash that you just can’t help but adore even though he’s always going on about how Russia invented everything and is the best (because it’s a big joke at this point – he just gets off on fucking with everyone) and is all about getting lucky with the ladies so everyone is just collectively rolling their eyes at his flirtatious antics at this point
Rand! Chapel!
EVERYONE IS AWESOME GO WATCH THIS SHOW IMMEDIATELY
….I’m sorry. At some point this devolved into me just gushing about TOS characters and how beautiful and perfect they all are.
Bottom line: WATCH STAR TREK. WATCH IT NOW. YOU ARE MAKING GOOD LIFE CHOICES, FRIEND.
Favorite Fringe show this year. This one-man show (performed by Pat O’Brien, who apparently was on Saved by the Bell) was a play of ideas, and
the ideas were not new, and I still thought it was great. Because it was
also a quest play, a story about a character’s attempt to understand EVERYTHING, and that journey was vital and moving and more than
worth the price of admission. It was one of the more compelling fictional portrayals
I’ve seen of the mind striving toward truth, of the world-spanning
search for what can be grabbed onto and called real. This is my own
deepest interest, as I feel like I am discussing all the time! I aspire to take a deep and broad
interest in the world and I am interested in people who do the same,
including writers and scientists and fictional characters.
So I loved
this librarian from the Dutch town of Hoofddorp, who (this is the conceit of the play) has rented a lecture hall to explain to us, his audience, what he has found out on a rather lengthy chase after the boundaries of existence. He got started on this quest when he found a book in the overnight returns bin that was more than a hundred years overdue. Before that he had never left Holland, and barely left Hoofddorp except once when he tried to go see the Gouda cheese factory
but it was closed that day, he doesn’t know why. Things proceed rapidly, and in this performance the Librarian tried to explain life itself to us using a box of scraps, some books, and a slide
carousel tilted up toward the screen at such an angle
that everything we saw was small, and limited to the upper right corner
of the screen, and shaped like a trapezoid. I don’t think I’d recommend reading this play; what really made the experience was the performance, the single character imploring us directly to pay attention, working so hard he was pouring with sweat by the end of the show. Bless his dazed soul and
his sore feet and his lost love and his Baedeker and the things that cannot be said; they were worth the stupid parking ticket I got while watching this show.
Someone put in a request for more Whistler, and more Glasgow School artists, so I’ll be interspersing some through the next few weeks’ posts. I’ll start with a Whistler, Nocturne in Blue and Silver: The Lagoon, Venice, from 1879–1880.
As with many of his fellow Salon des Refusés artists, James Abbott McNeill Whistler “rejected meticulous representation, preferring instead to paint mood and
atmosphere and seeking to express beauty in the line, color, and
arrangement of his compositions,” the Boston Museum of Fine Arts writes.
There is a sort of unity of tone in Whistler’s works—their sometimes hazy and indistinct forms seem foggy, rather than simply blurred.
It is a relentless explosion of imagery and every single shot is like a photograph, and if you take it out it is beautiful. It is a relentless barrage and orchestration of impossible feats of stuntwork and it looks beautiful, and you know it has a pedigree because everything you’re watching has genuinely happened on the day. – Tom Hardy
I recently found The Star Trek Sketchbook with all of Matt Jefferies incredible set designs. They look like they were 5 min drawings on the back of Star Trek script pages. Simply Amazing.
“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you. Till China and Africa meet”
Something I loved, even from the first time watching As I Walked Out One Evening, was how the spinny kiss came so early. It’s supposed to be the climax, like it was in Ode. But here it comes almost at the beginning, echoing the poem’s opening celebration of love that outlasts continents.
It creates a sense of expectation, even apprehension. The story has to go somewhere. If the speaker is already spinny-kissing and waxing rhapsodic about timeless love, where is there left to go?
And then it goes there. Auden, and Yulin and Mary Kate and Zack, go there. And Sean goes there, especially in the voiceover, which is my favorite favorite thing.
So much loving Yulin Kuang’s “I Didn’t Write This” series of short films. It’s a gorgeously simple idea, that reel of cinematic art unfolding alongside and in conversation with a literary work, like a peek into someone else’s dreams. Or like your own dreams, when you fall asleep with a favorite book on your chest.
So: here are my poem suggestions. I’ve fallen in love with the work of Mary Oliver, whose work so often gives me the strange upside-down feeling of being recognized by someone I’ve never met. There’s a quiet, attentive beauty to her work that I think would blend well with Yulin’s warm, funny, careful director’s eye.
STARLINGS IN WINTER
Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly
they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again; and you watch and you try but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it with no articulated instruction, no pause, only the silent confirmation that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life. Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard, I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.
THE MESSENGER
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.
Oh, we’re putting screamers up as sponsored posts now staff? Not cool, especially on mobile where sensitive people can’t block them. We don’t just block things because we’re being pissy about ads in our dash. It’s because of shit like this. We simply can’t trust you to do your part in keeping our dashes a safe place from triggering ads. (I’m referring to the ad from The Visit I just saw.)
