I hope that all your holidays were happy and that you have a healthy and Happy New Year! Janice and I drove in my new car to her family in Upstate New York for Christmas. The capacious Honda Fit served us well, even if it got its first ding (in the windshield). Fortunately, the weather was mild and traffic was relatively light, even if children and skiers were disappointed by the lack of a white Christmas.
Among other things, I received more reference books on Arthurian lore, some cool Star Wars and gamer garb, food baskets, and a toaster oven. As usual, we also ate very well, caught up on Disney/Pixar movies, and played with my nephews’ superhero action figures and Lego sets. My thoughts are with ill relatives and friends.
Unlike several of my friends, I was busy with work in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so I was unable to post to this blog. However, I don’t foresee any shortage of genre entertainment, food and travel, or politics to talk about in 2012!
This morning, Janice and I watched the annual Rose Parade, and we’ll be taking down our decorations as the holidays wind down. I hope that the global economy improves, people strive to peacefully overcome their differences, and to find time for all my friends and interests!
I’m a member of the older half of “Generation X” — born 1965 to 1985 — so I’m a product of 1970s and 1980s popular culture. Trek Nation and The Muppetsreminded me fondly of my childhood and demonstrated why the humanism of Gene Roddenberry and Jim Henson are much missed today.
The Science Channel has been showing documentaries including Ridley Scott’s Prophets of Science Fiction and Trek Nation (shades of the SciFi Channel’s Sciography) The former examines the lives and influence of various creators, while the latter is a more personal account of Rod Roddenberry’s attempts to learn more about his late father. Both show the great ideas and character flaws of their subjects.
Like Rod Roddenberry, I was only vaguely aware of the original Star Trek television series until I caught reruns in college. While I would have liked to have seen more discussion of Gene Roddenberry’s impact on space opera and genre entertainment in general, I understand his son’s desire to know his father better, despite their personality differences.
Gene Roddenberry had been a pilot in World War II and for Pan Am before becoming a police officer and eventually a TV writer and producer. His idealism helped propel Star Trek to cult popularity and inspired several real-world astronauts, despite network confusion and early cancellation. However, Roddenberry was also an emotionally absent father and a philanderer, and there was much of his swashbuckling attitude in Capt. James T. Kirk.
I knew much about the elder Roddenberry’s life and works, but Trek Nation provides interesting glimpses behind the scenes and beyond the usual interviews with actors and fans. For example, I didn’t know that acclaimed writer D.C. Fontana and Roddenberry parted on less-than-friendly terms. I still admire Gene Roddenberry’s desire to show a multiethnic future relatively free of strife and to provide parables about the Vietnam War, even if his personal life was far from a model one.
Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Ron Moore were understandably impatient with Gene Roddenberry’s relentless optimism, since good drama does require interpersonal conflict. However, I think that they and others took the franchise in a different and ultimately less successful direction. Most of the Star Trek movies have focused on villains rather than exploration or diplomacy, and the TV spin-offs after The Next Generation — Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise — increasingly watered down Roddenberry’s vision.
As space operas, Star Trek(and Star Wars, whose creator George Lucas gamely gives an interview to Rod Roddenberry in Trek Nation) juggle the desire for mythic archetypes with a rational, scientific universe as well as galaxy-scale, militaristic action with the power of close friendships. Author David Brin and other fans have taken sides, preferring one over the other, but I’ve enjoyed installments of both Star Trek and Star Wars for many years.
Interestingly, J.J. Abrams — whose recent cinematic reboot created an alternate continuity around the original 1960s characters with new actors — seems to understand the core of Trek better than many others at Paramount. I may not have liked Abrams’ overreliance on lens flares or his setting aside of the Next Generation‘s timeline, but he tells Rod Roddenberry in Trek Nation that even as a non-Trekkie, he understands why Kirk, Spock, McCoy and crew should reflect the aspirations of the audience and the hope for progress in uncertain times. Live long and prosper!
I definitely recommend Trek Nation to any Trekker or Trekkie, as well as to fans of speculative fiction and genre TV in general. Next up, I’ll look at the latest effort to restore another beloved franchise to the public consciousness — the Muppets!
This past week, I attended another going-away party for a co-worker, this time for Pat O., with whom I share a birthday. We went to Watch City Brewery on Waltham’s Moody Street. It’s a bit more spacious and easier to park near than Union Station in Newton, Massachusetts. However, it’s also farther from the “T,” which causes difficulties for those without cars. I’ve been busy with editing assignments in advance of Thanksgiving.
Byron V.O., an alumnus of the local role-playing groups who now lives in St. Louis, was in the Boston area this past week for work. On Friday, 18 November 2011, Byron met Thomas K.Y. & Kai-Yin H. at Janice’s and my place. We had dinner at Bertucci’s and hung out for a few hours afterward, talking about food, history, and movies.
I’ll post separately about the session, in which an adventuring party reunited in the Halmed Desert to deal with devils and return the city of Falit. The quick-and-dirty conversion worked fairly well — we’d have to review magic more carefully for an ongoing campaign — and I hope everybody had fun getting back into character.
I think Legends of Anglerre would be good for a new group and for simplifying higher-level characters. Most of my midlevel D&D and Pathfinder gamers would likely resist, however, because they have a lot of money and attachment invested in the current system and numerous powers/items. A few people have suggested using the modern supernatural Dresden Files, but I’d rather stick with Legends of Anglerre for traditional fantasy.
After another late night talking about politics, religion, and family, Byron and I drove back out to Framingham to pick up his gift basket. We saw a few morecostumes and had an easier time walking around the show, which was quieter on a Sunday morning. Janice had made breakfast, and we grabbed lunch at Wild Willy’s before Byron headed to the airport. Soon, millions of Americans will also be traveling!
On Thursday, 10 November 2011, Janice and I had dinner at the Acropolisrestaurant in Needham, Massachusetts. The next evening, we settled in for the usual night of animation and genre television. We enjoyed Cartoon Network’s premiere of Green Lantern: the Animated Series, which combines Bruce Timm’s streamlined style from his superb 1990s shows with computer animation similar to that in Star Wars: Clone Wars.
Speaking of Clone Wars, I think the darkening tone befits a war that began with idealism and ended with critically weakened democracies, much like World War I. On a related note, famed comic book creator Frank Miller lobbed a rhetorical grenade into debate around the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. I don’t deny that there have been difficulties with latter’s focus and safety, but I also believe that questioning economic fairness is no less patriotic than fighting terrorism. Science fiction author David Brin posted a strong retort, and I wish that both liberals and conservatives alike would strive harder to stay civil.
After raking leaves on Saturday, we ate at the Texas Road House, whose Dallas filet steak I enjoyed. I also liked Masterpiece: Contemporary’s Page Eight, an all-star musing on British national security and bureaucracy (not unlike Homeland). On Sunday, Janice and I attended a performance of works by Bach, Respighi, Haydn, and Brahms by the Rivers Symphony Orchestra at Christ Church in Needham.
After raking leaves for the first time this season on Friday, 21 October 2011, Janice and I went to the Midtown Smokehouse & Grill, a new restaurant in Needham, Massachusetts. The boneless Buffalo chicken had an Asian sweetness, the pulled pork and marinated turkey tips were lean but still juicy, and the pecan pie was a nice finish. The service was prompt and friendly.
Janice and I were glad to find Southern-style cuisine closer to home. Blue Ribbon Barbeque in Newton, Mass., doesn’t really have eat-in space, and while we like the buffet at Firefly’s in Framingham, Mass., it’s a bit far. Another good barbecue joint is Bison County on Waltham’s Moody Street. We still miss the Black-Eyed Pea back in Falls Church, Virginia.
On Saturday, we drove to Providence, Rhode Island, which we’ve passed through a few times but never really explored before. Janice had won a night’s stay at the Old Court through a WGBH (PBS) auction. The bed and breakfast was in a quiet neighborhood between downtown Providence and College Hill.
We enjoyed exploring the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). For a small institution, it has a wide collection of art, from Mesopotamia and classical Greece and Rome to medieval and Renaissance Europe, a bit of Asia and Africa, colonial and Victorian America, and some modern art. I’d compare RISD favorably with the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum rather than to bigger museums such as Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Janice and I had a late lunch at the Brickway on Wickenden, which had fun décor and an extensivebreakfast-stylemenu. We found College Hill, with its bohemian student population and shops, hilly terrain, and laid-back atmosphere, to be closer to places we’ve visited in Vermont or San Francisco than typical New England reserve. We also admired the historic architecture.
We swung through Brown University‘s pleasant campus, which reminded Janice of her grad school alma mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It was apparently parents’ weekend, since we saw relatively few students. At this point, we can pass for parents rather than coeds! From there, we walked downtown (unfortunately, we missed Water Fire by a few weeks).
We saw the Occupy Wall Street offshoot at Providence City Hall and the Rhode Island State House. I’m sympathetic to the movement, which is trying to become as focused as the anti-tax Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, but the tent city of underemployed college students, aging hippies, and homeless people wasn’t too impressive.
After stopping by our B&B, Janice and I headed back to College Hill, where we visited Brown’s book store and the independent Symposium Books. We checked out a few eateries on Thayer Street before deciding on Shanghai, a good, if noisy, Chinese restaurant.
We got a nondairy dessert (for my lactose intolerance) from “Like No Udder,” a food truck representative of a recent trend in urban dining. The chocolate soft serve with peanut-butter sauce was smooth and excellent. After walking back to the Old Court, our dogs were barking, and we decided to pass on a Jack-o-lantern event at the Roger Williams Park Zoo.
We could have gone to the Italian restaurants on Federal Hill for dinner, but that would have required taking a bus or driving my beat-up Honda Civic on winding streets through unfamiliar neighborhoods (Janice baked lasagna last night, anyway). The next morning, we ate breakfast in the B&B’s common room before heading back to Massachusetts for grocery shopping, housecleaning, and putting up Halloween decorations. Even a short weekend away was a nice respite, if not quite as grand as last year’s vacation in England.
Coming soon: Game scheduling struggles, midseason genre TV, DC’s comics and videos, and reader requests!
Gene's Worlds 