“It’s like if Star Wars were about Han Solo, but without aliens and blasters and hyperdrives, with the Jedi a 14-year-old induced-psychotic girl and sprinkled heavily with Old West individual-vs-the-Man subtext. Oh, and written by geeks. That’s Firefly.”
Tag: Hey Fanboy!
I was 6 when _2001_ premiered; 15 for _Star Wars_. I keep a set of weird-looking dice in my briefcase. Nuf said?
And Now, A “Word To Bring Back”
PERFORCE.
– Definition: “1 (obsolete) by physical coercion 2 by force of circumstances.”
– Used in a sentence: “As the VCR is currently recording Deep Space Nine, we must perforce view Firefly on DVD.”
– Why: Because sometimes, “really really really” just won’t do.
Consensual Art: Do Not Screen
That spirit of collegial creativity is one of the ideas behind Do Not Screen, a website which purports to present the contents of a mysterious red box in the “vast remoteness of Northern Michigan.” The contents included hundreds of cut-up 16mm film strips and a variety of other documents, some retrieved from envelopes marked “DO NOT SCREEN:”
Rather than re-assemble the film myself, I am, in the spirit of analog, snail-mailing frames from the film as well as a url with a corresponding activation code to scholars, students, theorists, film buffs, cultural anthropologists, writers, artists, editors, and others. In collaboration with the Critical Media Lab, I will manage a database that will reassemble the film in its proper order, with each frame-series (the strips of 12 frames) being activated as frame recipients log onto the website and enter the unique activation code that corresponds to their film strip. The more people who enter their frame numbers, the more complete the film will be.
Under a lens, the strip I received in the mail last week seems to show a group of 50 people dressed in cold-weather 1940s businesswear standing around someone’s backyard. The accompanying handwritten document, brown and crisp with age, was a labor receipt for ash retrieval and ditch filling. The whole exudes a creepy and cool aura, and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
Click A Laugh A Day
“COMIX” IS TO “COMICS” AS Zippy the Pinhead is to Snoopy, or Robert Crumb is to Jack Kirby: irreverent satire rather than bemuscled superheroes. The Internet has made it easier for would-be comix artists to reach an audience, and the following examples never fail to provoke in me either laughter or deep thought (or both). It’s easy to get lost clicking through “back issues;” you have been warned.
1. XKCD. Stick figures with brains and a heart. Probably the most accessible high-intellect and -soul pieces I’ve seen since the original Howard the Duck. Most of the math jokes are over my head, but it’s a tribute to the artist that they’re still funny.
2. PeanuTweeter. Random tweets replace the Peanuts gang’s word-balloon speech for an effect that’s ironic and wistful in a Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead sort of way.
3. Garfield Minus Garfield. As it says — a Garfieldectomy leaving the other characters intact. What’s left resembles one young man’s solipsistic fever dream, horrid and wonderful and cutely disturbing.
Paleostyle Question
I UNDERSTAND WHY CARTOON DEPICTIONS of “cavemen” show them dressed in fur. But why does the fur usually drape over one shoulder?
Pithyism #6
NO MATTER HOW ABSORBING OR rewarding the discussion concerning Jedi philosophy, training and practice, someone’s always going to say, “Dude, it’s only a movie.”
Yuri’s Night Out
A REMEMBRANCE OF FEATS PAST is a great excuse for a party — that’s the idea behind “Yuri’s Night,” which celebrates the cracking of the final frontier.
“Human Spaceflight became a reality 50 years ago with the launch of a bell-shaped capsule called “Vostok 1” on April 12th, 1961,” reads http://yurisnight.net, which is coordinating the “World Space Party” next Tuesday. “The capsule was carrying Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who took his place in history as the first human to leave the bounds of Earth and enter outer space.”
“Yuri’s Night” (the website) features contests, party and event locations, space history and more. (The partners page alone makes fascinating reading: I consider myself a space geek but had never heard of most of these: “Orphans of Apollo?” “We Want Our Future?” “Vostok Space Beer?” Goshwowboyoboy!)
Some say (me among them) that spaceflight is less a technical achievement than an inevitable stage in the evolution of life. Whether or not you agree, I hope you’ll join me in raising a toast April 12 — or better yet, raising your eyes to the stars.
The 49-Year-Old Punk Is Weeping
A FRIEND OF MINE FROM long-ago “nights we tried to die” (in Jim Morrison’s eternal phrase) opines, via Facebook, that he is now “too fat to wear … (his) “Too Drunk To F*ck” T-shirt.
I want a T-shirt of that.
Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy!
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you mount a high-definition camera on a spaceship and send it to Saturn:
(More information at http://www.outsideinthemovie.com/. For maximum fun, expand the view by clicking on the arrow-square in the bottom right corner.)
Cinematic Question: Shifting Allegiances
SINCE WHEN, IN THE MOVIES, did the Romans become the good guys?
Quick Review: Toy Story 3
ANOTHER GREAT PIXAR ROMP — IMAGINATIVE, colorful, well-rendered, well-written. But I can’t get over what a JERK that stuffed bear is.
Schrodinger’s Bat
IF THERE ARE UNIVERSES NEXT door to ours, I would swap the one with sentient reptiles for one that’s just different enough — one containing, say, all-new Star Trek episodes with just a wee bit o’ difference. How much would you pay for an original, still-in-the-wrapper Spock nose?