REMEMBER THE TV SERIES FIREFLY? The epic, intelligent, Star-Wars-without-aliens, Emmy Award-winning 2002 Joss Whedon production? Which Fox canceled after 14 episodes? Big fan campaign spawned the 2005 cinematic sequel Serenity? A feat unequaled since Star Trek v. NBC c. 1968?…
Category: Crit
Examination, analysis, appreciation.
Allegiance Considered
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution Of the United States of America And to the ideal on which it stands: One nation of individuals Indivisibly intertwined With liberty, justice and peace for all.
Sizing Science Fiction
ADMIT IT: YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED to compare the Millenium Falcon to a Danube-class runabout. Well, they’re about the same length according to Jeff Russell’s STARSHIP DIMENSIONS. SD scales nearly every species, starship and space station in the visual science-fiction universe…
Bad, Bad News
YES, THAT WAS MY EMAIL which KQED’s Michael Krasny read during his second hour this morning, which program concerned the effect of bad news on man-in-the-street audients. The show is worth a listen — archive available at http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201006091000. (I riffed…
Pithyism #2.35
THE FIRST TIME, YOU SEE/READ/HEAR IT for the story; the second time for nuance; third (and thereafter) is sheer love of craft.
Frank Frazetta, RIP
IF YOU GEEKLY ADOLESCED IN the 1970s, his illustrations danced through your dreams, between your headphones and into your all-night D&D sessions. His is the pen that transported us to immortal Barsoom and summoned Conan with his blood-dark legions; whose…
5 Thoughts: DS9 Reruns
1. SATURDAY NIGHT, STARBASE 33 MINYAN (Ann‘s and my official Couch Potato Lodge) commenced to go where two geeks had lately gone before: the entire seven-season, 149-episode run of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We first encountered this most operatic…
5 Thoughts: 21st Century SciFiFlix
FROM SOMEONE WHO WAS 15 when the first Star Wars premiered, and has recently been introducing the companion to the pre-1977 fruits of sfnal cinema: 1.) Though splashier, CGI doesn’t provide half the sense of wonder these days as models.…
One Day In 2010, With Feeling
STAN CLARK IS ON FACEBOOK. That means different things to different people, and nothing at all to those who don’t know that he’s Ann’s dad, a World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor who, along with his young sweetheart…
Fanboy Fun Illustrated
OLD USENET HANDS WILL HAVE an easier time than others with this one, but: 1. Go to alt.fan.starwars. 2. Select the thread “A New Hope.” 3. Enjoy. Yes, it’s “just” two guys typing the first Star Wars movie at each…
Perfuming Smacks (was Wadi, Inner Quay)
MORE ON THE EFFABLE FRAMING of ineffability: Back in November, I wrote a flashfictional fable (or, if you will, a flashfable [term (c) 2010 Neal Ross Attinson]) “Awe and Inquiry”. I called it that because it seemed an apt metaphor…
ORL Interview: Robert Anton Wilson
(AS A FOLO TO THE previous post, and at the urging of sinister forces who would prefer I remain nameless, I now present a reprint from the bygone Bulletin of Obscure Research, Far Corner (v1n5, c. 1991): an interview with…