Somewhere Hannah Montana is weeping.
Cyn
Pop culture: battered, fried and dipped in geeky goodness.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Video of the Day - The Enterprise encounters Miley Cyrus
Captain Kirk and crew don't know what to make of Miley's VMA performance either. This is clever and pretty darn funny. Enjoy.
Somewhere Hannah Montana is weeping.
Cyn
Somewhere Hannah Montana is weeping.
Cyn
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Patrick Stewart demonstrates the quadruple-take
Captain Picard - you are so wise. Just like Professor X - Patrick Stewart is ready to school you and you don't even have to be a mutant.
Enjoy this acting master class on the single, double, triple and quadruple- take. Then see if you can't put those lessons into action.
Enjoy.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Geek FM - The Greatest Song You Are Going to Love
Geek FM - Finding The Greatest Song You Are Going to Love
by Cheryl Lightfoot
We geeks are known for our love of comic books, science fiction TV and movies, and anime. But music? You don't see a lot of concerts happening on the floor at Comic Con. But geeks like me take our music as seriously as our other entertainment loves, if not more so.
For me, music is like air. I need it every day to keep me going. Sometimes music is more important, for although air is a biological necessity, it does not have the healing powers of music. Whether it's a bad day or a broken heart, music can uplift and cheer, each lyric or note pushing sadness a little further away. When I listen to a sad song when I'm sad, I feel the singer understands my pain.
And on the flip side, when people celebrate, music is a big part of it. Parties, wedding receptions, dances all require a musical score. There are few things more fun than rolling down the windows of your car, pushing the stereo volume up way to high, and belting out a terrific song as you roll down the highway. Music = joy.
Music can manipulate your emotions (next time you see a sad scene in a movie or tv show, pay attention: the background music may be saying more about how you are supposed to feel than the dialogue is.) It's an instant memory trigger, and a single bar of music can throw you back to a school vacation with your parents, your high school prom, your first dance with your new husband. I still remember lyrics to songs I haven't heard in several decades.
I don't remember when I started loving music or why, but I think my mom had a lot to do with it. She didn't have a huge album collection (though my dad did, and his Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel albums -among many others- were some of my favorites). Mom simply loved music. She was the type to sing along to the car radio constantly, and to have a boombox on the patio as she sunbathed by the pool. Mostly she like the top 40 radio hits, the poppy tunes that now populate those CDs that gather the best of the 70s and 80s. I think it's thanks to her that I like to always have music around me. I'll never forget her belting out this song to the car's FM radio.
My musical tastes are a little different than my mom's were; I love a good pop song, but I don't usually follow the Top 40. It just doesn't appeal to me, for whatever reason. When MTV launched, I was 15, and had a lot of free time on my hands that I used to open my mind to music I had never heard before. And while you have to work pretty hard to catch a music video on that channel now, then it was all music. And so much of it was brand spanking new to me. Perhaps, in the town where I grew up, they played the Sex Pistols on some radio station. But I never heard them there and I probably never would have heard them until college if it weren't for MTV.
I discovered two things: I liked finding new music, and for the most part, I was a fan of new wave music and what they called "college rock." Today, all that is lumped together as 'alternative', whatever that means, and those tunes are genuine oldies. But then, it was all so new and exciting. Finding a new song or band to love is like falling in love for the first time: you can't get the song out of your mind, you want to find out more about it, you want to spend all your time with it, and it causes a physical reaction: your heart beats faster, your skin tingles, it makes you want to get up and dance with joy. It's a total rush that I have never gotten tired of.
The first band I really fell in love with was Squeeze, a band from London that had a bit of success with two videos that you would have seen a squillion times if you watched MTV during that time: Tempted and Black Coffee in Bed. I really liked their music and the lead singer was totally dreamy, so I bought their greatest hits album and in no time, they were my favorite band. Here's a wonderful tune of theirs called Up the Junction, which is desperately sad if you pay attention to the lyrics.
I have seen Squeeze in concert many times and have all their albums, greatest hits CDs and all, and continue to worship them to this day. When I lost my mom, their song Some Fantastic Place helped me through that, though I can't listen to it even today without crying. Though they have fallen to two-hit wonder status on mainstream radio, they have a huge catalog of songs that deserve a wider audience. (Hint, hint!)
In college, I had a roommate as dedicated to music as I was, and although she didn't really introduce me to Genesis, as they were all over the radio at the time, she played their early, uber-cool albums that had Peter Gabriel as the lead singer. I had never heard those songs before, but really liked them. This song is really theatrical and weird, but only a fraction as weird as the album as a whole. I love it.
I met my husband while I was on a college internship and while we were dating, he introduced me to some great music too. One artist was Billy Bragg, the Englishman who talked with the taxman about poetry. Although Scott's tastes were more classic rock than new wave, he still introduced me to this iconic artist.
I knew I could marry Scott because once he heard my favorite music, he liked it too, or at least he tolerated what he did not love. After college, we moved to northwest Ohio and I finally found those radio stations I was looking for. One was called 89X, which broadcast out of the Windsor, Ontario area. Due to regulations regarding Canadian content, they played a set percentage of music from Canadian bands. For the first time, I was hearing alternative music from bands from the Great White North. I could make this post a hundred yards long if I included all my favorite Canuck bands of the 90s, so here are just two of my very favorite songs.
Odds, It Falls Apart
by Cheryl Lightfoot
We geeks are known for our love of comic books, science fiction TV and movies, and anime. But music? You don't see a lot of concerts happening on the floor at Comic Con. But geeks like me take our music as seriously as our other entertainment loves, if not more so.
For me, music is like air. I need it every day to keep me going. Sometimes music is more important, for although air is a biological necessity, it does not have the healing powers of music. Whether it's a bad day or a broken heart, music can uplift and cheer, each lyric or note pushing sadness a little further away. When I listen to a sad song when I'm sad, I feel the singer understands my pain.
And on the flip side, when people celebrate, music is a big part of it. Parties, wedding receptions, dances all require a musical score. There are few things more fun than rolling down the windows of your car, pushing the stereo volume up way to high, and belting out a terrific song as you roll down the highway. Music = joy.
Music can manipulate your emotions (next time you see a sad scene in a movie or tv show, pay attention: the background music may be saying more about how you are supposed to feel than the dialogue is.) It's an instant memory trigger, and a single bar of music can throw you back to a school vacation with your parents, your high school prom, your first dance with your new husband. I still remember lyrics to songs I haven't heard in several decades.
I don't remember when I started loving music or why, but I think my mom had a lot to do with it. She didn't have a huge album collection (though my dad did, and his Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel albums -among many others- were some of my favorites). Mom simply loved music. She was the type to sing along to the car radio constantly, and to have a boombox on the patio as she sunbathed by the pool. Mostly she like the top 40 radio hits, the poppy tunes that now populate those CDs that gather the best of the 70s and 80s. I think it's thanks to her that I like to always have music around me. I'll never forget her belting out this song to the car's FM radio.
Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John and Kiki Dee
My musical tastes are a little different than my mom's were; I love a good pop song, but I don't usually follow the Top 40. It just doesn't appeal to me, for whatever reason. When MTV launched, I was 15, and had a lot of free time on my hands that I used to open my mind to music I had never heard before. And while you have to work pretty hard to catch a music video on that channel now, then it was all music. And so much of it was brand spanking new to me. Perhaps, in the town where I grew up, they played the Sex Pistols on some radio station. But I never heard them there and I probably never would have heard them until college if it weren't for MTV.
I discovered two things: I liked finding new music, and for the most part, I was a fan of new wave music and what they called "college rock." Today, all that is lumped together as 'alternative', whatever that means, and those tunes are genuine oldies. But then, it was all so new and exciting. Finding a new song or band to love is like falling in love for the first time: you can't get the song out of your mind, you want to find out more about it, you want to spend all your time with it, and it causes a physical reaction: your heart beats faster, your skin tingles, it makes you want to get up and dance with joy. It's a total rush that I have never gotten tired of.
The first band I really fell in love with was Squeeze, a band from London that had a bit of success with two videos that you would have seen a squillion times if you watched MTV during that time: Tempted and Black Coffee in Bed. I really liked their music and the lead singer was totally dreamy, so I bought their greatest hits album and in no time, they were my favorite band. Here's a wonderful tune of theirs called Up the Junction, which is desperately sad if you pay attention to the lyrics.
Squeeze, Up the Junction
In college, I had a roommate as dedicated to music as I was, and although she didn't really introduce me to Genesis, as they were all over the radio at the time, she played their early, uber-cool albums that had Peter Gabriel as the lead singer. I had never heard those songs before, but really liked them. This song is really theatrical and weird, but only a fraction as weird as the album as a whole. I love it.
Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
I met my husband while I was on a college internship and while we were dating, he introduced me to some great music too. One artist was Billy Bragg, the Englishman who talked with the taxman about poetry. Although Scott's tastes were more classic rock than new wave, he still introduced me to this iconic artist.
Billy Bragg, A New England, Live
I knew I could marry Scott because once he heard my favorite music, he liked it too, or at least he tolerated what he did not love. After college, we moved to northwest Ohio and I finally found those radio stations I was looking for. One was called 89X, which broadcast out of the Windsor, Ontario area. Due to regulations regarding Canadian content, they played a set percentage of music from Canadian bands. For the first time, I was hearing alternative music from bands from the Great White North. I could make this post a hundred yards long if I included all my favorite Canuck bands of the 90s, so here are just two of my very favorite songs.
Grace Too, The Tragically Hip
I can't quite explain what is was about this exotic 'foreign' music that I loved so much, except perhaps that it was new and kind of unknown to most of my friends which made me feel that much cooler for liking it. Smug audiophiles everywhere probably know the sensation of discovering and loving a new band before anyone else does, or god forbid, that band SELLS OUT and actually starts making money performing their music. It feels good, is what I'm saying. Or, it could just be that the music was good and just happened to appeal to me. The Tragically Hip put on a damn good live show, too, which helped immensely. My passion for all things Canadian got even worse when I discovered there was a Canadian version of MTV, which I could tune in at the TV station where I worked. Amazingly, the feed was not scrambled! Those were heady days where I fell in love with dozens of bands from up north.
Not that I gave up on good American music. Of course, grunge happened and I loved it, flannel, dirty hair and all. It sounds cliche, but I when I heard Nirvana for the first time, it was an absolute "aha!" moment for me. But there was so much more to love. I got a subscription to CMJ magazine, a college music journal that sent out a free CD with every magazine. Most bands were totally unknown to me, and it's safe to admit that some of the songs were, sadly, not very good. But there were some great discoveries on those discs: Elliot Smith, Mark Eitzel, Sigur Ros, Orgy and so much more. This weirdly titled song is so distinctive and memorable.
Official Ironman Rally Song, Guided By Voices
Movies and TV are great ways to find new music, too. I normally prefer fiction to non-fiction when it comes to entertainment, but somehow I heard about a rock documentary that sounded really interesting. I like a band called the Dandy Warhols, who were featured in a movie called Dig! The movie compares and contrasts the possibly less-talented but more successful Dandies with a rival band called The Brian Jonestown Massacre (really), who are led by a near musical genius called Anton Newcombe. Unfortunately, Anton was unstable (if the movie is to be believed) and seemed determined to sabotage any chance of his band's success, which was really unfortunate. These guys are damn, damn good.
When Jokers Attack, Brian Jonestown Massacre
I've heard conflicting reports on just how accurate the movie is, but it is very entertaining and I definitely took away a love of BJM. They have a huge catalog of music (Anton is both talented and prolific) and the band experiments with a lot of different music styles.
The arrival of the internet meant a lot of things for music lovers: finding an obscure album on e-Bay, connecting with a group of like-minded music lovers and finding a community that didn't exist in your offline life, and finally knowing all the lyrics to It's the End of the World as We Know It by REM. While you could also steal music using illegal peer-to-peer sites, that wasn't cool and not too useful for discovering a new favorite band. (As an aside, the Brian Jonestown Massacre offered up their whole catalog for a free download during this time period.) Fast forward some years to the mid-2000s and the birth of iTunes. Not only would they give you free songs every week (usually pretty good, sometimes great,) but I discovered the single greatest thing about the service: the Song of the Day podcast.
I found several different radio stations or online communities that offer a daily podcast which consists of a single song, no commercials or DJ blather, that you could download and have and even put on your iPod. Completely free and legal! Were they all great? Of course not. But they were new songs, some from bands I knew and some from artists I'd never heard of but grew to love. The thrill of discovery and the satisfaction of ownership were tied up in one 4 minute podcast. I have probably heard thousands of new songs this way, and heard many tunes that would (much, much later) hit it big on alternative radio. But I heard them first. (Said the smug audiophile!)
The Thermals, Now We Can See
Rogue Wave, Lake Michigan
Want to get in on this free awesomeness? Do an iTunes search for KEXP, KCRW and The Current from Minnesota Public Radio. You can subscribe to the podcasts and depending on how cooperative your computer is, those songs will automatically download to your device as soon as you power it up. You can also stream their radio stations and hear more great tunes. MPR's The Current is a particular favorite of mine; their music is so eclectic (Miles Davis, Loretta Lynn and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes in the same set!) and they have no commercials. It's a public radio station, and last year I caved in during a pledge drive and became a sustaining member.
I actually had heard the Rogue Wave song around somewhere, and when it appeared as my daily download, I was so happy, because I liked it but didn't know where to find it. And there it was! I found Rogue Wave when a song of theirs appeared in the TV show Heroes. I hadn't heard of the band yet, but a Google search for the lyrics helped me figure out the name of the song. (It was Eyes, btw.) That's another cool way to find a song - the song you hear on the radio but don't catch the name of. I was driving back to Ohio from my parent's house and I passed through Angola, Ind. where there is a college radio station that plays cool music but never tells you what it is. I heard a great song but had no clue how to find it again. I memorized a bit of the lyrics, got home and hopped on the internet and voila! I found it.
Bell X-1, Rocky Took a Lover
I love Bell X-1 now, and I'm so glad I drove past that station on that day, and that I was able to figure out who they were. But if you don't want to just trust blind luck in trying to find your new favorite song, here are some ways to seek out new music.
The internet has a lot of great music features now, like streaming radio. I know a lot of people are in to Pandora and Spotify, but I like SoundCloud. I subscribe to a few bands and labels I really like, and I just make a list of those songs I want to hear. There's no logarithm-based software trying to convince me that because I like one 90s band (Better Than Ezra,) I must also really want to hear Counting Blue Cars. Because I don't. SoundCloud just plays what you ask it to play. You can favorite all the songs you love but can't afford to buy just now, try out a new album before you commit to buying it, or explore the music offerings of labels, bands, or individuals who seem to like the same stuff you do. I follow SubPop records on SoundCloud, and they have hundreds of good songs to enjoy. I recommend you try it and see if you can find something you like. (This would be a good site for lovers of different music genres; unfortunately I am no expert on where to find the next great country or rap artist you are looking for.)
The internet has a lot of great music features now, like streaming radio. I know a lot of people are in to Pandora and Spotify, but I like SoundCloud. I subscribe to a few bands and labels I really like, and I just make a list of those songs I want to hear. There's no logarithm-based software trying to convince me that because I like one 90s band (Better Than Ezra,) I must also really want to hear Counting Blue Cars. Because I don't. SoundCloud just plays what you ask it to play. You can favorite all the songs you love but can't afford to buy just now, try out a new album before you commit to buying it, or explore the music offerings of labels, bands, or individuals who seem to like the same stuff you do. I follow SubPop records on SoundCloud, and they have hundreds of good songs to enjoy. I recommend you try it and see if you can find something you like. (This would be a good site for lovers of different music genres; unfortunately I am no expert on where to find the next great country or rap artist you are looking for.)
Low, Silver Rider
So that's me, seeking out and geeking out to new music. What music do you like, my fellow geeks? Where do you go when you want a new music fix? Or do you prefer the oldies? I'd love to know, so post something in the comments! Until then, I'll be the chick in the corner with earbuds plugged in, finding solace in sound.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Coming Attraction - Geeky Goodness is Headed Your Way
Ready to take a look ahead at some coming attractions?
First, gaze upon my pretend boyfriend Chris Hemsworth and the rest of the gang in Asgard. I am very excited for this sequel to Thor.
I liked Kenneth Branagh's Shakespearean take on "Thor" better than most, but I can't wait to see what Alan Taylor's "The Dark World" will look like. He's directed several episodes of "Game of Thrones." No Red Weddings, please.
Oh, Sleepy Hollow, you had me at "Heads Will Roll."
I'm waiting anxiously for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special - 10 and 11 together! My two favorite Doctors... Wait, maybe 4 and 5 are my favorite Doctors... I'm still pretty excited. Thank you BBC for keeping my favorite show alive longer than I've been alive.
Speaking of Brit TV, Sherlock! Hurry back to us Benedict Cumberbatch and Bilbo!
First, gaze upon my pretend boyfriend Chris Hemsworth and the rest of the gang in Asgard. I am very excited for this sequel to Thor.
I liked Kenneth Branagh's Shakespearean take on "Thor" better than most, but I can't wait to see what Alan Taylor's "The Dark World" will look like. He's directed several episodes of "Game of Thrones." No Red Weddings, please.
Oh, Sleepy Hollow, you had me at "Heads Will Roll."
FOX, give me something to make up for the absence of Fringe and the frustration of watching the Keystone FBI agents on The Following. I only hope this show doesn't go the way of New Amsterdam. A show that I still miss.
Speaking of Brit TV, Sherlock! Hurry back to us Benedict Cumberbatch and Bilbo!
This isn't exactly new, but if you've ever enjoyed the Dark Shadows Television series, you must read the current comic book series. Maybe I should call it a graphic novel. Whatever it is, this fabulous book picks up right where the series ended and sets the prefect tone with a compelling storyline. This almost makes up for what Tim Burton did to one of my favorite shows ever...almost.
Cyn
Cyn Mackley is edits and writes for a tech website, works in a newsroom and watches too much television. You can find her recipes and fiction plus a few craft projects at http://cyndaverse.blogspot.com/
Sunday, August 11, 2013
GEEK TV – 2013/14 Fall Launch Roundup
A guide to the new sci-fi and fantasy shows that geeks should be
checking
out this fall!
Cheryl Lightfoot
We are well into August as I write this, and that heralds the beginning
of my favorite season...the new TV season! Merely weeks from now, old, dead reruns will
fall off the networks branches like so many desiccated brown leaves. And while
actual tree branches will remain barren throughout our long norther winter, TV
networks will soon start unfurling new programming for you to geek out over.
I'm no math geek, so I'm not actually going to count the number of
sci-fi and fantasy concept shows that debuted last fall vs. what the nets have
to offer us for this year, but it's safe to say that there are quite a few, quite
possibly more than in years past. Certainly within the genres on offer, there
is quite a lot of diversity so that there should be something for everyone.
What's your poison? Witches? Robots? Mutants? Superheroes? Period pieces with
classic monster-movie villains and/or legendary American folk tale frights?
Yeah, they've got that.
Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of some of the
shows you may want to give a chance this fall season.
ALMOST HUMAN – Fox, premieres Monday, November 4th at 8pm
Fringe fans, you might be interested in this...J.J.
Abrams will be executive producing and Fringe scribe J.H. Wyman will write this
futuristic buddy-cop show starring Karl Urban (Star Trek) and Michael
Ealy (Common Law, Flash Forward). Urban plays Kennex, your classic
not-by-the-book cop with a bionic leg and crappy attitude. It's set in the
we-FINALLY-have-hovercars future, so there's robots. Ealy is Dorian, the
human-like android companion that Urban must cart around with him to keep him
from going rogue again.
Naturally, Kennex and Dorian don't get along, at first at least (going
by the trailer), but despite the cliché set-up, the series still looks
promising. The settings are visually arresting (pardon the cop pun) and seems
capable of some very interesting storylines. The show has great bona fides, at
least for Fringe fans. With luck, it will transcend the serial police
drama formula the way Fringe did and give us some great character
development as well.
(photo (C) FOX Network)
DRACULA – NBC, Premieres Friday, October 25th at 10pm
By turns sexy and gory, this is not a show for kids, to state the
obvious. Starring Johnathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) as the vamp in
question, this show reimagines Dracula in Victorian England rather than in Transylvania, and introduces Dracula as American entrepreneur Alexander
Grayson, who arrives in society promising scientific marvels. He soon meets
Mina Murray (not yet Harker), played by Arrow's Jessica De Gouw, and has
an instant connection with her. (Flashbacks reveal their connection has roots
deep in a shared past.)
The usual gang, Johnathan Harker, Lucy Westenra, Van Helsing and
Renfield, are still there, though their characters are variations on the
classic versions. New characters, like
vampire huntress Lady Jane are introduced, and judging by the trailer, accents
are hit and miss across the board. (Dublin-born Meyers' American accent is a
decided miss.) The show looks luxe, and if you have a strong stomach (for both
acrobatic vampire sex and gobs and gobs of bloody limbs and appendages) you
might really enjoy this show.
MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – ABC, Premiering Tuesday, September 24th
at 8pm
This is the Big Kahuna of Geek TV. Set after the events in the
billion-dollar Avengers movie, Marvel and EP Joss Whedon bring
superheroes to the small screen. Not-dead Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg; and at least
one of my kids owes me something for losing a certain post-movie bet) emerges
as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D's Level 7
operations and sets about recruiting what looks like a sort of junior-varsity team of powered-up
good guys who save the day, albeit with less fanfare than the gods, monsters
and iron-suited avengers in the movie.
Ming-Na Wen (ER) is Melinda May, a former pilot and fighter who
is recalled from desk duty to lead the new team. J.August Richards (Angel)
is one of the more recognizable recruits, and Cobie Smulders will appear in at
least one episode as Maria Hill, her character from the movie. It's hard to see how ABC could go wrong with
this one, even if some of our fave Marvel characters don't show up (though I
hope they will!) Though trailers for the pilot make it look exposition-heavy,
once this show gets going it should be action-packed fun for the whole family.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND-ABC, Premiering Thursday, October 10th
at 8pm
ABC takes its fairy-tale drama down the rabbit hole, introducing the
character of Alice (Sophie Lowe, a relative newcomer) as a kind of warrior
princess of Wonderland. Aching to fight her mortal enemy, the Queen of Hearts,
and out to save her true love, Peter Gadiot as Cyrus, Alice is busted out of a
sanitarium (!) by the White Rabbit (!!) played by John Lithgow (!!!) In true Once
Upon a Time tradition, the spinoff show will mix up its fairy tales, with
Naveen Andrews of Lost appearing as Aladdin's Jafar.
THE ORIGINALS-CW, sneak preview Thursday, October 3rd at
9pm; regularly Tuesdays at 8pm.
In The Vampire Diaries, Joseph Morgan's Klaus is THE original
vampire, so it makes sense that he is big enough for his own show now.
Accompanied by his brother Elijah (Daniel Gilles), sister Rebekah (Claire Holt)
and his werewolf girlfriend, Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin), Klaus decamps from Mystic
Falls to The Big Easy in order to put the fear of himself in one of his vampire
underlings (Charles Michael Davis as Marcel.) There are more witches and
werewolves and vampires ready to revolt, so Klaus decides to stick around and
reclaim his title as number one Vamp. If you like TVD, and the prickly yet
sometimes decent character of Klaus, give the sequel a try.
SLEEPY HOLLOW-FOX, Premiering Monday, September 16th at 9pm
Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) rides into the 21st century,
pursued by the legendary Headless Horseman. With the cops on his side, old Ich
tries to bring the supernatural demon to justice, and along the way, as the
trailer unoriginally states, heads will roll. Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones and
John Cho also star.
Actually, this one looks pretty good. Although it does not seem to have
a sustainable multi-season story, a short season of this good-looking show by all appearances would be great. George Washington himself cameos in flashbacks and
Ichabod's flame-haired wife Katrina (Katia Winter) in dream sequences, so the
story we learned in elementary school will also be explored, along with the
Revolutionary-fish-out-of-water trope of having a Minuteman in today's New
York.
(photo (C) FOX Network)
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-CW, Premiering Wednesday, October 9th at
9pm
Based on the U.K. series of the same name (which had two iterations, in
1973 and 1992), this show sticks with the theme of super-powered mutants who
are, of course, hunted by a shadowy government agency and are fighting the
forces of evil from a secret lair. Though that seems done to death, and the
pilot is quite laden with exposition, this show still seems like a good
investment of your time. Not only does it appear after The CW's hit show Arrow
(my favorite new show last year), and if you geeks find the lead familiar-looking, that's because it stars the cousin of Arrow's
abdo-licious star Stephen Amell, (Robbie Amell, 1600 Penn, Revenge). And
there's an interesting twist at the end of the first episode involving the head of the shadowy government
agency, played by always creepy Mark Pellegrino of Lost that could give
the show legs beyond the X-men style set-up.
(photo (C) CW Network)
Of course there are more shows for geeks: Arrow, Revolution and Beauty
and Beast (among others) are returning for second seasons, and even more sci-fi
goodness is slotted for mid-season, including the return of Josh Holloway of Lost
fame as a human supercomputer in Intelligence on CBS. Geeks like me, and
maybe you, should find a lot to occupy our imaginations (and free time) this
fall!
Sunday, May 19, 2013
COLLECTION 7 DISK 4, AFTER WATCHING IT AGAIN
Saturday,
May 18, 2013 1:17 AM
I
have watched Collection 7 Disk 4 again.
Naomi
said something like i used to think about tragedies that you got over them
& life went on, but now i know you don't and it doesn't.
About
love. In this disk, it's revealed that Joshua loved both Naomi & Barnabas,
without them knowing it. He could feel love but he couldn't show it, not in
such a way that they felt it. Is that how he escaped the curse? The wiki says
yes.
Learning
that her husband loved her all this time even though he coiuldn't show it was
not enough to stop her suicide. Neither was the prospect of adopting Millicent and Daniel, which Joshua wanted to do and which might have brought them together, had she lived. Would Millicent recover from Lt. Forbes, given enough time? Maybe she would have, if Naomi had lived.
http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Joshua_Collins
According
to the Wiki he lived til 1805. Ten years after chaining Barnabas into his coffin. I'm not sure when, if ever, in Collection 1 the
plaques by Joshua, Naomi and Sarah's graves are clearly shown. But the official
story seems to be that he survived because he was unable to love Barnabas. At
least, he may have felt love, but he coudn't show it.
I
think Joshua personifies a kind of love that was rebelled against during the
1960's. The patriarch of the family who provides for them financially, but
whose love is not perceived by them. Joshua Collins is everything the 60's
generation was rebelling against. He's also the quintessential WASP, lacking
warmth. This kind of love was derided by the middle or upper class kids who
became hippies as "plastic."
This
is a theme close to the heart of the series.
This episode was directed by Dan Curtis himself.
COLLECTION 7 DISK 4, before watching it a 2nd time
Saturday,
May 18, 2013 8:32 PM
Here's what i want from watching the last disk of collection 7 again:
Naomi's
speech before she kills herself.
The
revelation that Joshua loved Naomi all along after all, though she she and Barnabas
thought he didn't.
The last look between Barnabas & Joshua, before Barnabas gets in his coffin
expectiing his father to destroy him before he wakes up, so he'll never wake up again. I wanted to see who
directed that episode, who directed them in that long, meaningful gaze.
The
scene in which he was going to bite Millicent again, the way he looks at her. Then when Vickie gets back
to the 20th century, Barnabas looks at her that same way.
He
looks at the living, pulsing throat, longingly. He brushes the hair back,
almost tenderly. then opens his mouth ferociously.
It's that sudden change from
tender longing to ferocious attack that's so erotic. (Lara Parker was probably
sorry she never had a scene like that with Jonathan Frid, so she had to write
terrible novels imagining it.) (Though there is one erotic scene between
Barnabas & Angelique that was never shown, just obliquely referred to, but
I imagined it as vividly as if I had seen it, the young gentleman and heir to the estate and the voodoo savvy maid of his fiance's aunt, who imagined that it meant something to him and wrought terrible revenge when it turned out it didn't.)
Sunday, April 7, 2013
JOSHUA COLLINS: AN 18TH CENTURY AMERICAN FATHER
Barnabas Collins was born a 19th century romantic trapped in the 18th century, unable to to win the respect of his his ultra-rational foundations-of-capitalism American revolutionary-war-veteran father.
Too bad for him that he spent the 19th century chained in a coffin.
When he emerges in 1967, instead of being 100 years ahead of his time he is now 100 years behind, able to wow romantic Victoria Winters with rhapsodic monologues on the beauties of the night, hoping she will willingly choose to become his lost Josette & share his undead existence.
Joshua did not respect him, as he was certainly not a "chip off the old block," ready to eagerly devote his life to whatever the family business is profiting from, currently the shipyards. But he loved him.
Louis Edmonds as Joshua Collins gave an amazing performance in Collection 6. Nathan Forbes, a scoundrel hoping to benefit from the Collins fortune, persuades him to go to the old house, stirring up hopes that he will find Barnabas living there.
http://www.collinwood.net/features/interview/edmonds.htm
One of my favorite things for an actor to do is show more than what's in the script. When Joshua Collins goes to the old house as Lt. Forbes urges, and sees Barnabas emerge from his coffin at dusk, he says things expressing shock at all the murders so far committed & the admission that there will be more, & his intention to turn Barnabas over to the authorities. But he shows that Joshua's joy at seeing his son (apparently) alive outweighs everything else.
His hands long to touch and embrace his son, after having laid his lifeless body to rest in the secret room in the mausoleum. You can see this longing in the actor's hands, though at first they are held back by Joshua's native Yankee restraint. In a subsequent scene he is unable to resist moving toward his son, who says Father, don't touch me.
Why was Barnabas's coffin put in the secret room? Because Joshua feared that what Barnabas actually died of after having been bitten by a bat was the plague. If word got out that the proprietor's son had died of the plague & was buried in the family mausoleum, it would destroy the business of the shipyard. Or so Joshua feared.
Conflict between the nature of a character and what is happening in the story is perhaps the essence of drama. It is in Joshua's nature to put business before personal relationships, causing his wife Naomi to ask "Do you think of me at all?"
I think conflict between Barnabas and his father is portrayed in scenes where they argued about Barnabas not being terribly interested in the family business as he waited for his fiancee Josette to arrive by ship. Clearly the marriage was an alliance between two wealthy families, the Collinses & the duPres's. Those scenes are in Collection 4, so I can see them again without having to order a disk. But the conflict is clear. For Barnabas, love comes first, for Joshua business.
But that doesn't mean Joshua doesn't love. It just means that the people he loves don't always feel loved.
This makes me think of novels that take place in the 60's in which young characters express dismay at their parents' "middle class values," thinking they only love stocks, bonds & annuities, not their children.
When I worked in a law office that created disabled needs trusts I saw hidden in the legalese laying out how parents provided for their disabled child the love the parents felt for them. The clients of this law firm were not wealthy people who would make a trust for any child, but people of modest means who only created trusts for children with special problems. But as I read and typed the text for these trusts, I thought "This is love." I know the clients of the firm I worked for were warm people who showed all their children love in ways more tangible than the legalese of a trust. But the wealthy parents who set up trusts for any child are expressing love too, but if they are like Joshua Collins the children may not feel loved.
Too bad for him that he spent the 19th century chained in a coffin.
When he emerges in 1967, instead of being 100 years ahead of his time he is now 100 years behind, able to wow romantic Victoria Winters with rhapsodic monologues on the beauties of the night, hoping she will willingly choose to become his lost Josette & share his undead existence.
Joshua did not respect him, as he was certainly not a "chip off the old block," ready to eagerly devote his life to whatever the family business is profiting from, currently the shipyards. But he loved him.
Louis Edmonds as Joshua Collins gave an amazing performance in Collection 6. Nathan Forbes, a scoundrel hoping to benefit from the Collins fortune, persuades him to go to the old house, stirring up hopes that he will find Barnabas living there.
http://www.collinwood.net/features/interview/edmonds.htm
One of my favorite things for an actor to do is show more than what's in the script. When Joshua Collins goes to the old house as Lt. Forbes urges, and sees Barnabas emerge from his coffin at dusk, he says things expressing shock at all the murders so far committed & the admission that there will be more, & his intention to turn Barnabas over to the authorities. But he shows that Joshua's joy at seeing his son (apparently) alive outweighs everything else.
His hands long to touch and embrace his son, after having laid his lifeless body to rest in the secret room in the mausoleum. You can see this longing in the actor's hands, though at first they are held back by Joshua's native Yankee restraint. In a subsequent scene he is unable to resist moving toward his son, who says Father, don't touch me.
Why was Barnabas's coffin put in the secret room? Because Joshua feared that what Barnabas actually died of after having been bitten by a bat was the plague. If word got out that the proprietor's son had died of the plague & was buried in the family mausoleum, it would destroy the business of the shipyard. Or so Joshua feared.
Conflict between the nature of a character and what is happening in the story is perhaps the essence of drama. It is in Joshua's nature to put business before personal relationships, causing his wife Naomi to ask "Do you think of me at all?"
I think conflict between Barnabas and his father is portrayed in scenes where they argued about Barnabas not being terribly interested in the family business as he waited for his fiancee Josette to arrive by ship. Clearly the marriage was an alliance between two wealthy families, the Collinses & the duPres's. Those scenes are in Collection 4, so I can see them again without having to order a disk. But the conflict is clear. For Barnabas, love comes first, for Joshua business.
But that doesn't mean Joshua doesn't love. It just means that the people he loves don't always feel loved.
This makes me think of novels that take place in the 60's in which young characters express dismay at their parents' "middle class values," thinking they only love stocks, bonds & annuities, not their children.
When I worked in a law office that created disabled needs trusts I saw hidden in the legalese laying out how parents provided for their disabled child the love the parents felt for them. The clients of this law firm were not wealthy people who would make a trust for any child, but people of modest means who only created trusts for children with special problems. But as I read and typed the text for these trusts, I thought "This is love." I know the clients of the firm I worked for were warm people who showed all their children love in ways more tangible than the legalese of a trust. But the wealthy parents who set up trusts for any child are expressing love too, but if they are like Joshua Collins the children may not feel loved.
DARK SHADOWS, REASON & THE OCCULT
DARK SHADOWS, REASON & THE OCCULT
Watched
Collection 6 disk 4 again. Am thinking more about the relationship between the
18th century, the original Age of Reason, and the 20th century, which seemed to
be the Age of Reason II, at least until the mid to late 1960's, when Dark Shadows was on.
Back
when I was watching collections 1-4 when Barnabas was introduced, I wondered
what was wrong with these people. How much evidence did they need that
something supernatural was going on?
When
I watched the first disk of Dark Shadows:
The Beginning, I realized that the Collins family had a long history of
spooky, creepy, things that go bump, or sob uncontrollably, in the night.
Then,
in Collection 4 Episode 366, Victoria Winters is transported back in time to
1795, when Joshua & Naomi Collins & their children Barnabas & Sarah
lived in the old house, & Collinwood had just been built but was not yet
occupied.
Joshua's
sister Abigail & the man she summoned from Salem (of all places) whom she calls the "Reverend" Trask, insist that witchcraft is going on, &
conclude that Victoria must be the witch.
In
1795, it had been 100 years since the Salem Witch trials. Modern people like
Joshua & Naomi Collins thought people who believed in such things, like
Abigail, were throwbacks to a bygone superstitious age, and those who took
advantage of them, like Trask, were charlatans.
In
1795, just as in 1967, people thought there were no such things as witches,
vampires, curses and black magic.
Dark
Shadows is about the conflict between rationality and reason on the one hand, and
the occult, on the other, and is told from the point of view that the latter is
real and the former tragically mistaken.
It's
about a time when the certainties of the 20th century, like those of
the 18th, were about to be questioned, & perhaps shattered
forever.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Dark Shadows in the 18th Century: costumes
I am really going to miss the 18th century when they go back to the boring old 20th. i think the period costumes are quite accurate.
When Millicent & Ruby Tate wore short sleeves, I wondered if women did that in those days, & i learned that they did. Compare the costumes of Naomi & Milicent to see what was old school & what was the latest thing in 1795.
Short sleeves, high waist emphasizing the bust, & natural, unboned bodice were the mini skirts & go-go boots of their day.
THOUGHTS ON DARK SHADOWS
Now that I changed my Netflix membership so I can get disks in the mail as well as streaming shows on my computer, I was planning to revel in my joy at being able to watch Dark Shadows again after 40 years or so. I have been in love with Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins since I was 9 years old, & was heartbroken when the series suddenly went off the air in 1971 with no explanation or warning.
I've finished Collection 5, which I think is where the Barnabas/Josette/ Angelique triangle culminated in the witches curse causing Barnabas to become undead.
Now that I'm halfway through Collection 6, I feel less inclined to revel in the recovered joy of Barnabas than to mourn for the moral dissolution of Barnabas. It's all so sad.
Barnabas when he was alive was an extremely decent guy by 18th century standards
His indiscretion with the maid of his fiance's aunt would not have raised eyebrows in the 1790's, nor in the 1960's, for that matter. Being ahead of its time Dark Shadows had something of a 1970's sensibility, by which the fact that the maid was willing & the whole scene took place in a looser moral and warmer physical climate than stodgy, chilly Collinsport, did not excuse the gentleman's taking advantage of the situation, as so many gentlemen did in those days.
None of this means Barnabas deserved his horrible fate, of course. But no matter how willing the woman or how tropical or voodoo-savvy the locale, the moral seems to be you just don't know what the consequences of the mildest indiscretion will be.
Once Barnabas had become undead, he began the journey from uncommonly decent 18th century gentleman to evil undead monster.
Part of that journey seems to be to allow himself to indulge a little, and then a lot, in the few or many, depending on how you look at it, pleasures & advantages of his situation.
It seems like whatever happened between him and Angelique was the only time Barnanbas the living man got to indulge in lust. He never got to have married lawful lust with Josette. And that was it, while he was alive. But once he was undead, he got to indulge in blood lust.
The way he looks at the living, pulsing necks of his intended victims -- that's lust. And that's why 200 years later, he spurned Julia's offer of herself with some spurious excuse about how he needs her to have a will of her own so she can be his doctor, and settled on Carolyn. He wants to suck the blood of a young nubile woman.
But it's not only about pleasure. At first that stake through the heart was all he wanted, as it would end the curse. But Angelique would not allow that to happen. After that, he began to take extreme measures to protect his undead existence. And that's where he began to resort to murder. He began to resort to taking advantage of his vampire powers, as well as the one power he had while alive. The power to make women like, or even love him.
He tried to be good. He tried to warn all these women away from him. But we all know the consequence of an overwhelmingly attractive man saying "no, no, stay away from me, I'm no good for you." They pretty much throw themselves at him, and end up dead. All except Josette, who survived her bite. This must have been how he learned he could bite without killing, as 200 years later he did with Willy, & then Maggie. I guess his love for Josette led to the restraint that allowed her to survive, & eventually during all those years chained in his coffin he was able to learn how to do that on purpose, when Willy broke the chain & unwittingly let him out.
Jonathan Frid is 1 of 2 actors I've seen portray extreme benevolence & extreme viciousness in a single character. The other one is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Echo in Lost. (I think of him as the wonderful actor with the unpronounceable 2 names.) Barnabas, whether alive or undead, has the power to inspire uncommon affection, loyalty or love. And Jonathan Frid has uncommon power as an actor. That's ultimately what made Dark Shadows such a persistent success, regardless of how good the early pre-Barnabas episodes were.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Connection between real life love of space program and love of sci-fi
Once, without plan & by chance, I saw a space shuttle landing on TV. It was profoundly thrilling. As the machine came to a stop and stood on the runway, I thought, "That thing has been in outer space. It was JUST THERE and now it's back." I realized I have feelings about space travel that are not subject to rational thought. That is, politics, opinions about the value of space travel and space exploration, don't matter. It's an absolute. We must go into space.
How much does having watched Star Trek since I was six years old have to do with this?
Well, my introduction to the fantasy and the reality of space travel pretty much happened at the same time.
I was six when I first heard these words:
"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Then, two days after my eighth birthday, the people who ran the Hollywood Los Feliz Jewish Center wheeled a TV into the gym and herded us campers in to watch the moon landing.
I knew since then that imagining going into "Space, the Final Frontier" was an indelible part of my reality, as was actually going into space, as in "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
The confluence of these two experiences left me not only with the imperative that we must go into space, but my own answer to the question "Why must we go into space?"
Glued to NASA TV on my computer screen watching the space shuttle program's final mission to the International Space Station now, in July 2011, I think of the role science fiction has played in shaping this answer:
I think of the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. It confronts us with the possibility that an alien intelligence, vastly greater than our own, will judge the merit of our species, and have the power to destroy us based on the outcome of that judgment.
The alien visitor Klaatu, who has landed in Washington DC, explains to a representative of the President of the United States that he must deliver a critical message to all the leaders of the world. The representative says that’s impossible.
The scene demonstrating this impossibility shows attempts to arrange the meeting failing as each possible location is rejected on grounds that seem perfectly reasonable by the standards of 1951.
Now in 2011 the space shuttle Atlantis is docked with an International Space Station made possible by cooperation of leaders of the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Klaatu would be proud. So would Gene Roddenberry.
To see the U.S. and Russia cooperating in space seems like something out of Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future: the Starship Enterprise staffed with officers from the U.S., Russia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of Africa, and an alien from the planet Vulcan.
I am also thinking of the novelette "Dinosaur Blood" by Richard A. Lovett, published in the January/February 2006 issue of Analog, in which an artificial intelligence probe placed by a loose confederation of aliens monitors the Earth to see whether its current dominant species is worthy of continued existence & possible future membership, or should be considered an evolutionary dead end and destroyed, like its predecessor the dinosaurs.
What, in this story, is the turning point that decides humanity's fate?
When humanity's representative in the eyes of the AI, a young heiress named Trista, brought to its attention by the carbon signature of the burning of the world's last gallon of gasoline, a human with the material resources to make her vision count once her vision is awakened, "had found something that had always been rare and was now nearly nonexistent. She had found the soul of an explorer."
We must come together and cooperate as one planet, and we must explore. Our very survival depends on it.
That's the message of science fiction about space travel, corroborated by the reality of space travel during my lifetime.
Source for my comments about the film The Day The Earth Stood Still: http://www.moviefanfare.com/the-day-the-earth-stood-still/
A timeline of space travel around my lifetime:
October 4, 1957
Sputnik I the first human-made object to orbit the Earth
May 25, 1961
President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade.
April 12, 196
Yuri Gagarin, 1st human in space, orbited earth
July 18, 1961
I am born
August 14, 1961
The current president of the United States, Barack Obama, is born
20 July 1969
United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon
12 April 1981
STS-1 First launch of Space Shuttle Columbia
1998
Beginning of construction of the International Space Station
July 8 2011
STS-135 launch final mission space shuttle Atlantis
2011
Completion of US part of ISS
2012
Completion of Russian part of ISS
~ Linda Talisman
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