The short version: This was a ball to read. A fantastic set of deeply funny and thoughtful science fiction stories from a long forgotten master. Now for the long version...
Robert Sheckley was writing 'funny science fiction' long before Douglas Adams kicked off the 'Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy phenomenon'. 'The Store of the Worlds' is a fascinating modern collection of the most memorable of his stories. They're all brilliant, and I'm on record as disliking short fiction! I was introduced to Sheckley by the discovery that the film 'Condorman' (I don't care what you say; It's awesome!) was loosely based on his novella 'The Game Of X', then I read his novella 'Dimension X', and then 'The Store of the Worlds' hovered on my book list for ages before finally shuffling into its full papery splendour on the book pile. And then I put off reading it, because it was full of short stories. That was the wrong move as even now there are five or six people who will probably have a chance of getting this book for their next birthday or Christmas.
So, what's good about 'The Store Of The Worlds'? It's irreverent AND idealistic. Some of the stories are plain cynical and some are ultimately optimistic. Sheckley seems to have an eye for a realistic and funny view on love. In fact, the story that has been most sticky in my mind so far is called 'The Language Of Love', wherein a man who finds 'I love you' a too mundane way to convey his feelings to his girlfriend, studies for months on a world which perfected the language and understanding of love, just to come back and realise he is only 'mildly fond' of the lovely lady. It loses much in the translation, but is actually very very funny. It seems strange that his is a name that doesn't appear more often in reviews and recommendations. Perhaps that is because very few novels successfully appear in the usually humourless and arid genre of science fiction? Only Sheckley and Adams spring to mind, with Jasper Fforde staying firmly off in his own little playpen of obscure delights. If Roger Zelazny had written more science fiction he would be firmly in the club too.
Short review? One of the problems with lighter stories and novels is that the enjoyment is going to be more ephemeral than substantial. I could go on at length about the stories contained, but that would be doing a subtle disservice to the material. The stories contained in 'The Store of the Worlds' are not intended to be analysed deeply, much as lots of pulpy stories weren't. They were intended to entertain and sell magazines and books. However, the breadth of stories is fascinating. As an author Sheckley knew when to pull out the twist 'Twilight Zone' type bittersweet ending as well as the occasional hopeful denouement. You're never entirely sure what you're going to get. 'A slightly less predictable and horrific version of 'The Twilight Zone'' is probably a good description to give 'The Store of the Worlds', a rare short story collection that was hard to give up until it was over. Every story seemed meticulous and thoroughly well-conceived. Good job, compilers, and good job to you too, Mr Sheckley.
Now it's time to dig deep and find a way through 'A Tale Of Two Cities' again. It too is wonderful but the knowledge of the ending weighs upon every page.
O.
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Oo-de-lally
It is wonderful to have spent bonus time here in Aberystwyth, a marvel I could never have predicted. If only it could go on forever more with extra innings for wandering along the prom and cliffs! The only unfortunate aspect is the being stuck on Llanbadarn between lectures, feeling ever so slightly homeless. Now, Llanbadarn campus is lovely but it's also ever so slightly remote. It's possible that there are gulags closer to this place than the main campus. The manic travelling of Tuesdays does however make a layover in Llanbadarn more tolerable, especially with a lecture theatre all to oneself for two hours between lectures. It allows for a certain amount of relaxation after more than hour of hiking on top of two hours of bus time. Scoff though you may, but travelling is rather more tiring than anything else in the world, even if you can distract yourself with the working of examples for later in the day.
Having a lot of solitary time can work to your advantage of disadvantage. In recent times I've thought a lot about 'Star Trek', for my nerdiness is without bounds, and there aren't many people to talk to on buses or in the middle of the night after a trip to the theatre or cinema, or while eating lunch al fresco while batting away criminal seagulls with a laser loaded baseball bat. I miss Star Trek, but how can you make any more when the essence of the show has been run into the ground by more than four hundred (Deep Space Nine doesn't count) episodes already of a ship flying through space and encountering problems? Perhaps the answer is to embrace the weird? When Star Trek The Next Generation finished, it ended with the intimation that the larger adventure was only just beginning and then Star Trek fizzled into Voyager and Enterprise, which were mostly the same show over and over. A new Trek show should perhaps go to the really strange places in the galaxy, where humanoid life is rare, and first contacts are more difficult than shaking hands and having cups of tea. Maybe the next one should be odd with a generous portion of crazy mixed in. Maybe the grander adventure is ready to kick in? Maybe?
As the two hour gap gets close to finishing and I prepare to face the ordeal of explaining the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (it's a number that says stuff) to undergraduate economists, this blog must wind down to a conclusion, hodge podge as it was. Rain showers continue to roll in and roll out, and moods continue to rise up and cast themselves down. Lectures line themselves up to be written, as well as practicals and example sheets, marking accumulates somewhere deep in the bowels of the central office, and the world spins on its axis. Out there the vastness of the universe, defying understanding in its very existence, continues to move on. Stars, planets, nebulae, black holes and all kinds of things we don't even know about yet are waiting. We don't know everything, and maybe we never will. That's all part of the fun, and that's the more meaningful thing we can think about on the bus. Aren't Tuesdays wonderful?
O.
More 'Wordspace' soon, and coming sometime soon the return of 'Triangles'.
Having a lot of solitary time can work to your advantage of disadvantage. In recent times I've thought a lot about 'Star Trek', for my nerdiness is without bounds, and there aren't many people to talk to on buses or in the middle of the night after a trip to the theatre or cinema, or while eating lunch al fresco while batting away criminal seagulls with a laser loaded baseball bat. I miss Star Trek, but how can you make any more when the essence of the show has been run into the ground by more than four hundred (Deep Space Nine doesn't count) episodes already of a ship flying through space and encountering problems? Perhaps the answer is to embrace the weird? When Star Trek The Next Generation finished, it ended with the intimation that the larger adventure was only just beginning and then Star Trek fizzled into Voyager and Enterprise, which were mostly the same show over and over. A new Trek show should perhaps go to the really strange places in the galaxy, where humanoid life is rare, and first contacts are more difficult than shaking hands and having cups of tea. Maybe the next one should be odd with a generous portion of crazy mixed in. Maybe the grander adventure is ready to kick in? Maybe?
As the two hour gap gets close to finishing and I prepare to face the ordeal of explaining the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (it's a number that says stuff) to undergraduate economists, this blog must wind down to a conclusion, hodge podge as it was. Rain showers continue to roll in and roll out, and moods continue to rise up and cast themselves down. Lectures line themselves up to be written, as well as practicals and example sheets, marking accumulates somewhere deep in the bowels of the central office, and the world spins on its axis. Out there the vastness of the universe, defying understanding in its very existence, continues to move on. Stars, planets, nebulae, black holes and all kinds of things we don't even know about yet are waiting. We don't know everything, and maybe we never will. That's all part of the fun, and that's the more meaningful thing we can think about on the bus. Aren't Tuesdays wonderful?
O.
More 'Wordspace' soon, and coming sometime soon the return of 'Triangles'.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
Story: Wordspace, IV
(Part I , III , V)
The Wordspace theoretically existed infinitely and flatly in all directions. The ever brilliant and witty Sky shimmered above thinking flighty and witty thoughts as Cloud and Air spread out beneath her according to their whims and mighty Ground spread out over the underlying landscape of petty punctuation and unused nonsense syllables that formed the substructure of the world. At the limits of the explored world there had been placed a frontier of great antiquity, which formally divided the known from the unknown. And now there was a hole in that frontier: An entirely inexplicable patch of nothingness with foundation showing through beneath. Bizarre!
Mystery perambulated about the hole and pondered the great - aha! - mystery of what lay beyond the frontier. Once the mighty explorer Indignation had set off, somewhat grumpily of course, to find the edge of the world and had been gone for five years. It had been a much more peaceful time without him and people were stunned to see long forgotten word stumble back into the known world so many years later looking gaunt and lettered to the point of crisis. Many weeks of recuperation had passed before his story could be heard, such as it was. He had stumbled for ages beyond this now breached symbolic frontier, and had found nothing more than an endless expanse of nonsense and drivel. The current idea was that there was no edge to the world.
THWUMP!
"Great Shades!" said Wimsy, as the syllabic dust settled. Something had fallen from the sky, from a great height, and now they could see what it was. Or who. The visitor straightened up and twisted around on his unfamiliar letters before looking at the Council of Lesser Abstracts, who looked back at him in total incomprehension. His landing had punched another hole of nothingness into the foundation. "Hola!" said the arrival and Mystery was astonished. A word that no-one knew, an extra-lexical visitor, speaking a language unknown to the Wordspace. This was an alien life form, from some other alphabet far far away. Unprecedented as far as most words were concerned, but not to him. He held up a few digits and saluted the visitor, "Welcome. We welcome you in peace."
"No comprendo... Hay una problema... Me llamo Sorpresa..." The foreign word gestured toward himself and repeated "Sorpresa" a few times.
As the others looked on in a befuddled state, Mystery stepped toward Sorpresa, motioned to himself and told him: "My name is Mystery. Mystery."
"Misterio?"
"Close enough." Mystery realised things weren't as hard as he thought and looked up at the sky. "Yes, Mystery." Relations could be established now but despite the monumental events of the last few moments he couldn't help from raising his head and looking up into the muddied letters of the now confused Sky. "Where did you come from, though... And what's up there, beyond the Sky?" He had never been up high enough to talk to Sky, but now he realised it was long past time. He returned to the issue at hand. "Come along with me, Sorpresa, we have to try to make some sense of you!"
There shall be more...
The Wordspace theoretically existed infinitely and flatly in all directions. The ever brilliant and witty Sky shimmered above thinking flighty and witty thoughts as Cloud and Air spread out beneath her according to their whims and mighty Ground spread out over the underlying landscape of petty punctuation and unused nonsense syllables that formed the substructure of the world. At the limits of the explored world there had been placed a frontier of great antiquity, which formally divided the known from the unknown. And now there was a hole in that frontier: An entirely inexplicable patch of nothingness with foundation showing through beneath. Bizarre!
Mystery perambulated about the hole and pondered the great - aha! - mystery of what lay beyond the frontier. Once the mighty explorer Indignation had set off, somewhat grumpily of course, to find the edge of the world and had been gone for five years. It had been a much more peaceful time without him and people were stunned to see long forgotten word stumble back into the known world so many years later looking gaunt and lettered to the point of crisis. Many weeks of recuperation had passed before his story could be heard, such as it was. He had stumbled for ages beyond this now breached symbolic frontier, and had found nothing more than an endless expanse of nonsense and drivel. The current idea was that there was no edge to the world.
THWUMP!
"Great Shades!" said Wimsy, as the syllabic dust settled. Something had fallen from the sky, from a great height, and now they could see what it was. Or who. The visitor straightened up and twisted around on his unfamiliar letters before looking at the Council of Lesser Abstracts, who looked back at him in total incomprehension. His landing had punched another hole of nothingness into the foundation. "Hola!" said the arrival and Mystery was astonished. A word that no-one knew, an extra-lexical visitor, speaking a language unknown to the Wordspace. This was an alien life form, from some other alphabet far far away. Unprecedented as far as most words were concerned, but not to him. He held up a few digits and saluted the visitor, "Welcome. We welcome you in peace."
"No comprendo... Hay una problema... Me llamo Sorpresa..." The foreign word gestured toward himself and repeated "Sorpresa" a few times.
As the others looked on in a befuddled state, Mystery stepped toward Sorpresa, motioned to himself and told him: "My name is Mystery. Mystery."
"Misterio?"
"Close enough." Mystery realised things weren't as hard as he thought and looked up at the sky. "Yes, Mystery." Relations could be established now but despite the monumental events of the last few moments he couldn't help from raising his head and looking up into the muddied letters of the now confused Sky. "Where did you come from, though... And what's up there, beyond the Sky?" He had never been up high enough to talk to Sky, but now he realised it was long past time. He returned to the issue at hand. "Come along with me, Sorpresa, we have to try to make some sense of you!"
There shall be more...
Friday, 21 February 2014
Miscallaneous: 'The Thirty Nine Steps, 'The Lego Movie', great moments of relief and a giant blue die?
My head hurts a bit too much to be creative. It throbs in its tiredness after far too much expenditure of nervous energy and far too little sleep. It has been a week of events, all good and none bad, but tiring in their very existence. Four events: A hospital trip (good outcome, enough said!), a trip to the cinema to see 'The Lego Movie', a community theatre production of 'The Thirty Nine Steps', and a lecture given which should have lasted far far longer.
Being happy with being busy is an acquired ability, and this week was the busiest I've been in a fairly long time, possibly since perhaps the grand days of Aberystwyth period I, or some of the more dubious portions of the Nottingham interregnum, or perhaps some weeks in the Hungary inhabitation. It's easier to be busy when someone wants you to be busy with them. Now to be busy by oneself is paradoxically harder, as sleep and books can be so, so seductive!
So, to events, wherein we find a play (good) and a movie (good). Of the two, 'The Thirty Nine Steps' was far more enjoyable in that way that small scale theatre always is. Minimal sets and paraphernalia make a production far more interesting than glitz and glamour and decorations galore, and the incredibly simple and obvious but to me unexpected option of using a projector to display in text the current location and time on the backdrop was utterly brilliant. I wonder if they do it that way in the big old London productions. Do they instead teleport people back in time to Scottish moors? Is that farfetched? Anyway, it was a good production, with some kooky aspects and the only flaw being an overly shouty lead performance. I think that last part might actually be encoded into the script though. Oh, and there were dancing girls, which utterly stunned me.
In the alternate world of cinema, 'The Lego Movie' was pretty good superficial fun. There was no great depth, no excellent aspect, just general competence and a certain amount of stylistic panache. It's hard to think that a movie which is also the very essence of product placement could be made any better. Seriously, how can you make an advert with any more credibility than this movie has? The story is predictable, but the film itself points that out on several occasions so that isn't a problem. The voice cast are excellent - Chris Pratt was born to play 'Ordinary Joes' - and the animation is jerky but enjoyable once the audience has adjusted. Overall a good movie, but probably not one I'll ever see again. Why on Earth was Lego Batman so ineffectual? I don't understand.
The best part of the cinema trip was the fact that Sam the Eagle has a non-trivial part in the next Muppets trailer. Sam The Eagle will get things to do, and he has a badge. This can only be good. Sam the Eagle. If they continue to highlight the Muppets who were mostly neglected post-Henson then I will be overjoyed. Oh, and yes, that single thing was the standout of the whole movie experience. That might mean something.
Laziness calls. The computer is doing all the work with eight consecutive heavy workloads to punch through by Tuesday. The end of the week has struck!
O.
Being happy with being busy is an acquired ability, and this week was the busiest I've been in a fairly long time, possibly since perhaps the grand days of Aberystwyth period I, or some of the more dubious portions of the Nottingham interregnum, or perhaps some weeks in the Hungary inhabitation. It's easier to be busy when someone wants you to be busy with them. Now to be busy by oneself is paradoxically harder, as sleep and books can be so, so seductive!
So, to events, wherein we find a play (good) and a movie (good). Of the two, 'The Thirty Nine Steps' was far more enjoyable in that way that small scale theatre always is. Minimal sets and paraphernalia make a production far more interesting than glitz and glamour and decorations galore, and the incredibly simple and obvious but to me unexpected option of using a projector to display in text the current location and time on the backdrop was utterly brilliant. I wonder if they do it that way in the big old London productions. Do they instead teleport people back in time to Scottish moors? Is that farfetched? Anyway, it was a good production, with some kooky aspects and the only flaw being an overly shouty lead performance. I think that last part might actually be encoded into the script though. Oh, and there were dancing girls, which utterly stunned me.
In the alternate world of cinema, 'The Lego Movie' was pretty good superficial fun. There was no great depth, no excellent aspect, just general competence and a certain amount of stylistic panache. It's hard to think that a movie which is also the very essence of product placement could be made any better. Seriously, how can you make an advert with any more credibility than this movie has? The story is predictable, but the film itself points that out on several occasions so that isn't a problem. The voice cast are excellent - Chris Pratt was born to play 'Ordinary Joes' - and the animation is jerky but enjoyable once the audience has adjusted. Overall a good movie, but probably not one I'll ever see again. Why on Earth was Lego Batman so ineffectual? I don't understand.
The best part of the cinema trip was the fact that Sam the Eagle has a non-trivial part in the next Muppets trailer. Sam The Eagle will get things to do, and he has a badge. This can only be good. Sam the Eagle. If they continue to highlight the Muppets who were mostly neglected post-Henson then I will be overjoyed. Oh, and yes, that single thing was the standout of the whole movie experience. That might mean something.
Laziness calls. The computer is doing all the work with eight consecutive heavy workloads to punch through by Tuesday. The end of the week has struck!
O.
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
"How appropriate, you fight like a cow!"
So far in the Quirky Muffin, I've jabbered away mightily on the subjects of books, movies, television and the world at large but I've never touched computer games in any depth, apart from some throwaway mentions of the excellent world of interactive fiction, also known as text adventures. You should all go and check out interactive fiction, as its awesome and still free in its current non-professional state. The world of puzzles and riddles is still out there.
Not all adventure games were purely textual however, as there were also graphical adventure games, a whole subgenre of puzzling and storytelling that is for the most part now gone. The king of the graphical adventure publishers was LucasArts and the its crown was mounted with spectacular gems mined from deep beneath Monkey Island, the setting for its greatest games.
"Look behind you, it's a three headed monkey!"
The 'Monkey Island' games were events, as were 'Grim Fandango' and 'Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis'. The first play through of each being by turns hilarious as well as endurance puzzling events. I spent days trying to work out how to turn off a mechanical waterfall in the historical Caribbean before finally looking up that we needed to use the 'monkey' wrench! Yes, there was a monkey in lead character Guybrush Threepwood's capacious inventory-holding pantaloons! You'll just have to live with that knowledge. It was awesome.
On this day of monumental happiness - look, world, out the window... Isn't it lovely? - it's natural to remember happy things and this whole genre forms a satisfying and fulfilling little corner of entertainment. In many ways the death of graphical adventures has drawn a line in the sand computer games between the era of non-violent PC games and the following age of combative console games. Advances in graphics killed the graphical adventure ironically, and the ubiquity of strategy games like 'Civilization' too. Oh, 'Civilization', you monumental time waster, you magnificent historical epic. You shouldn't need a good PC to play Civilization, it should run on everything! You should be able to put it on your calculator and run your world with function keys! Take away those animated heads, blast it and I could play it now!
Ahem. "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab!"
Everything I learnt from computer games I learnt from Monkey Island. The game was a funny little microcosm that you could even play multiple times and still do new things you had missed before. It was fascinating, right from the insult swordfighting to the voodoo dolls in the second game to the repeated 'deaths' of the third and even Monkey Kombat from the fourth. And the puzzles were always great. The followup from 'TellTale Games' is actually pretty good too, although it is split into five standalone episodes instead of one monster game, resulting in an overall loss of maximum complexity. It makes up for it with the Pirate Pox though. More green women in the world is always good.
For jokes, for story, for characters transcending crummy 80s graphics, and even for just plain goofiness there was really nothing to beat Monkey Island. Or 'Grim Fandango', or 'Fate of Atlantis', or 'Day of the Tentacle', or even 'Zak McKraken' and 'Sam and Max'. Was it a Golden Age for a now moribund genre? Certainly. Is there no activity in graphical adventures now? Mostly, although Telltale Games did followups to 'Sam and Max' and their 'Tales of Monkey Island'. Much as did text adventures ultimately went to the world of the Internet and the people, maybe this genre should too, although I wish Telltale would refocus and make some more quality adventures.
To 'Monkey Island'. It actually was good, and it's not just nostalgia.
O.
Not all adventure games were purely textual however, as there were also graphical adventure games, a whole subgenre of puzzling and storytelling that is for the most part now gone. The king of the graphical adventure publishers was LucasArts and the its crown was mounted with spectacular gems mined from deep beneath Monkey Island, the setting for its greatest games.
"Look behind you, it's a three headed monkey!"
The 'Monkey Island' games were events, as were 'Grim Fandango' and 'Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis'. The first play through of each being by turns hilarious as well as endurance puzzling events. I spent days trying to work out how to turn off a mechanical waterfall in the historical Caribbean before finally looking up that we needed to use the 'monkey' wrench! Yes, there was a monkey in lead character Guybrush Threepwood's capacious inventory-holding pantaloons! You'll just have to live with that knowledge. It was awesome.
On this day of monumental happiness - look, world, out the window... Isn't it lovely? - it's natural to remember happy things and this whole genre forms a satisfying and fulfilling little corner of entertainment. In many ways the death of graphical adventures has drawn a line in the sand computer games between the era of non-violent PC games and the following age of combative console games. Advances in graphics killed the graphical adventure ironically, and the ubiquity of strategy games like 'Civilization' too. Oh, 'Civilization', you monumental time waster, you magnificent historical epic. You shouldn't need a good PC to play Civilization, it should run on everything! You should be able to put it on your calculator and run your world with function keys! Take away those animated heads, blast it and I could play it now!
Ahem. "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab!"
Everything I learnt from computer games I learnt from Monkey Island. The game was a funny little microcosm that you could even play multiple times and still do new things you had missed before. It was fascinating, right from the insult swordfighting to the voodoo dolls in the second game to the repeated 'deaths' of the third and even Monkey Kombat from the fourth. And the puzzles were always great. The followup from 'TellTale Games' is actually pretty good too, although it is split into five standalone episodes instead of one monster game, resulting in an overall loss of maximum complexity. It makes up for it with the Pirate Pox though. More green women in the world is always good.
For jokes, for story, for characters transcending crummy 80s graphics, and even for just plain goofiness there was really nothing to beat Monkey Island. Or 'Grim Fandango', or 'Fate of Atlantis', or 'Day of the Tentacle', or even 'Zak McKraken' and 'Sam and Max'. Was it a Golden Age for a now moribund genre? Certainly. Is there no activity in graphical adventures now? Mostly, although Telltale Games did followups to 'Sam and Max' and their 'Tales of Monkey Island'. Much as did text adventures ultimately went to the world of the Internet and the people, maybe this genre should too, although I wish Telltale would refocus and make some more quality adventures.
To 'Monkey Island'. It actually was good, and it's not just nostalgia.
O.
Monday, 17 February 2014
Lost threads of surprising antiquity
(On 'Slade In Flame', shreds of Arabian Tales, and first mutterings about Peanuts by Schultz)
This week's Film Bin commentary is for the 1975 film 'Slade In Flame', which forms the accompaniment to this burst of furious writing. It's a funny movie, very disjointed, and purely a string of pearly anecdotes. Tom Conte is very good though.
It's hard to connect to the lives of popular musicians though, citizens of that bizarre and somewhat seedy industry where success is so fleeting and the fall from grace is so shockingly far. The intensely social and hedonistic lives of rock stars are so opposed and antithetical to mine that it's far more akin to watching laboratory specimens than real people, or being the one looked out upon. Really, it's yet another example of how easy it is to be judgemental over people in other walks of life, far away from the hollowed walls of academia.
Don't stare too long into the abyss, for that abyss can swallow you whole.
In board game news, 'Tales of the Arabian Nights' is proving a considerable success. It's surprising how out of print that game was for so long, an absent giant in storytelling games. I think I rather love it in its twisty little roads to victory. Inevitable victory was wrenched from my grasp after an unacceptably long stint in miserable prison and someone else's teleportation by a treasured hairless ape. Blast you, hairless ape, you cost me everything! It's a seriously good game, drenched in theme, and far more about the journey than the final result, although we did all get strangely invested. Excellent game.
<break to record 'Slade in Flame' commentary>
It's easy to react badly to things from outside your realm of experience, as they often touch the nerves of things we've never considered. 'Slade in Flame', for example, barely touches the raucous lifestyles of rock stars but does just enough to make a contrast to what we other people experience. Fortunately the characters in the movie retreat from the alternative lives briefly presented to them, but how many didn't in the real life movie industry, and how many were ruined? It's really rather alien, and utterly opposed to something else I've been delving into recently: 'Peanuts' by Schultz. The first twenty years of 'Peanuts' sits close by in Canongate 'Complete' hardback editions and represents one of the greatest achievements in comic strips. It's so innately human that you can't help but wonder how Schultz did it for fifty years at any degree of quality. There is no comparison.
"I'll get you yet, Red Baron!"
O.
This week's Film Bin commentary is for the 1975 film 'Slade In Flame', which forms the accompaniment to this burst of furious writing. It's a funny movie, very disjointed, and purely a string of pearly anecdotes. Tom Conte is very good though.
It's hard to connect to the lives of popular musicians though, citizens of that bizarre and somewhat seedy industry where success is so fleeting and the fall from grace is so shockingly far. The intensely social and hedonistic lives of rock stars are so opposed and antithetical to mine that it's far more akin to watching laboratory specimens than real people, or being the one looked out upon. Really, it's yet another example of how easy it is to be judgemental over people in other walks of life, far away from the hollowed walls of academia.
Don't stare too long into the abyss, for that abyss can swallow you whole.
In board game news, 'Tales of the Arabian Nights' is proving a considerable success. It's surprising how out of print that game was for so long, an absent giant in storytelling games. I think I rather love it in its twisty little roads to victory. Inevitable victory was wrenched from my grasp after an unacceptably long stint in miserable prison and someone else's teleportation by a treasured hairless ape. Blast you, hairless ape, you cost me everything! It's a seriously good game, drenched in theme, and far more about the journey than the final result, although we did all get strangely invested. Excellent game.
<break to record 'Slade in Flame' commentary>
It's easy to react badly to things from outside your realm of experience, as they often touch the nerves of things we've never considered. 'Slade in Flame', for example, barely touches the raucous lifestyles of rock stars but does just enough to make a contrast to what we other people experience. Fortunately the characters in the movie retreat from the alternative lives briefly presented to them, but how many didn't in the real life movie industry, and how many were ruined? It's really rather alien, and utterly opposed to something else I've been delving into recently: 'Peanuts' by Schultz. The first twenty years of 'Peanuts' sits close by in Canongate 'Complete' hardback editions and represents one of the greatest achievements in comic strips. It's so innately human that you can't help but wonder how Schultz did it for fifty years at any degree of quality. There is no comparison.
"I'll get you yet, Red Baron!"
O.
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Television: 'Star Trek' (1966-1969)
There can be no nerdier post of the Quirky Muffin. This is the one. The one about 'Star Trek'. That show forms one of the primary texts of my existence and probably always will. I started off with the diluted 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and then fell in love with the original, as it truly is an iconic show.
It has been said - but not by me - that 'Star Trek' was an analogy for the West exploring the barbarous rest of the world and imposing its own values, but that's really nonsense. If that were true then the crew would never bump into even more advanced cultures like the Metrons or Trelane or the Organians, all of whom are quite happy to not impose their own values on the Federation or the Klingons or anyone else. 'Star Trek' is actually the opposite of that, and above all it's optimistic. Repeating from elsewhere on this blog, 'Trek' broke the link of science fiction to horror and then danced off into the world of adventure, chuckling on the way. And then they came back and made a number of excellent films too, as well as some debatably bad ones. It's actually freakish that a 1960s television cast could transfer so well en masse into a film series, a fact which becomes even more impressive when we consider how badly the next cast did on the big screen.
None of the spin-off Treks can really claim to do anything as legendary as the things the original series did. 'The Next Generation' can to some extent claim to bring a certain maturity to science fiction in the 1980s and 1990s but apart from that mainly succeeds despite its own flawed structure instead of because of massive virtues. It was a show that would have collapsed into a small black hole of dreadfulness without Patrick Stewart holding it all together with a classy grip of iron.
One of the wonderful things about Trek is that optimism, personified in the crew of the ship, and their attitude to the adventure ahead. We can have an alien on the bridge and have him be 'one of the guys'. We can have a black woman have a responsible role and never even raise an eyebrow, nor question the Asian eyebrow or the Russian navigator or any of the crew from all around human parts of the galaxy. This was unheard of in the institutionally racist network philosophy that dominated most of the twentieth century. There's a grand Federation of sentient races that gets along in a grand alliance and that is fascinating although almost untouched by the series itself. Another important thing about Trek is the fusion of character humour with serious allegorical plots. Oh, allegory, the grandest thing about the original series and I almost forgot! This was a series that tackled important issues by couching them in allegory and for the most part succeeded. In fact, it was only when it overtly tried to do things that it got into trouble (see inter-racial kisses and so on), and that was with the caretaker creative team of the doomed third and final season.
Anyone can recite the story of 'Star Trek' so largely this is all redundant. Gene Roddenberry created a wonderful template for something in the vein of a 'Wagon Train To The Stars' and then Gene Coon added the character nuances that made it fly into a stratosphere of greatness, that wouldn't be recognised until after it was all over. That's easy to find elsewhere. What you won't find is the love that a person can have for the oddest things: Dr McCoy has the best taste in women, Spock is a great big fraud and would sacrifice himself almost gratefully, Kirk is ultimately insecure, and the crew tolerates Uhura's singing over the intercom as they're secretly very scared of her. Uhura can be creepy sometimes...
Finally, the show was in colour, glorious colour and none of them wore green cardigans like Captain Crane in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'. That point can not be overstated enough. And Kirk loved destroying super-computers, as much as I would love to after years of coding and frustration. Go, Kirk, go! Talk that thing into self-destruction.
O.
It has been said - but not by me - that 'Star Trek' was an analogy for the West exploring the barbarous rest of the world and imposing its own values, but that's really nonsense. If that were true then the crew would never bump into even more advanced cultures like the Metrons or Trelane or the Organians, all of whom are quite happy to not impose their own values on the Federation or the Klingons or anyone else. 'Star Trek' is actually the opposite of that, and above all it's optimistic. Repeating from elsewhere on this blog, 'Trek' broke the link of science fiction to horror and then danced off into the world of adventure, chuckling on the way. And then they came back and made a number of excellent films too, as well as some debatably bad ones. It's actually freakish that a 1960s television cast could transfer so well en masse into a film series, a fact which becomes even more impressive when we consider how badly the next cast did on the big screen.
None of the spin-off Treks can really claim to do anything as legendary as the things the original series did. 'The Next Generation' can to some extent claim to bring a certain maturity to science fiction in the 1980s and 1990s but apart from that mainly succeeds despite its own flawed structure instead of because of massive virtues. It was a show that would have collapsed into a small black hole of dreadfulness without Patrick Stewart holding it all together with a classy grip of iron.
One of the wonderful things about Trek is that optimism, personified in the crew of the ship, and their attitude to the adventure ahead. We can have an alien on the bridge and have him be 'one of the guys'. We can have a black woman have a responsible role and never even raise an eyebrow, nor question the Asian eyebrow or the Russian navigator or any of the crew from all around human parts of the galaxy. This was unheard of in the institutionally racist network philosophy that dominated most of the twentieth century. There's a grand Federation of sentient races that gets along in a grand alliance and that is fascinating although almost untouched by the series itself. Another important thing about Trek is the fusion of character humour with serious allegorical plots. Oh, allegory, the grandest thing about the original series and I almost forgot! This was a series that tackled important issues by couching them in allegory and for the most part succeeded. In fact, it was only when it overtly tried to do things that it got into trouble (see inter-racial kisses and so on), and that was with the caretaker creative team of the doomed third and final season.
Anyone can recite the story of 'Star Trek' so largely this is all redundant. Gene Roddenberry created a wonderful template for something in the vein of a 'Wagon Train To The Stars' and then Gene Coon added the character nuances that made it fly into a stratosphere of greatness, that wouldn't be recognised until after it was all over. That's easy to find elsewhere. What you won't find is the love that a person can have for the oddest things: Dr McCoy has the best taste in women, Spock is a great big fraud and would sacrifice himself almost gratefully, Kirk is ultimately insecure, and the crew tolerates Uhura's singing over the intercom as they're secretly very scared of her. Uhura can be creepy sometimes...
Finally, the show was in colour, glorious colour and none of them wore green cardigans like Captain Crane in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'. That point can not be overstated enough. And Kirk loved destroying super-computers, as much as I would love to after years of coding and frustration. Go, Kirk, go! Talk that thing into self-destruction.
O.
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