Life as an Extreme Sport

Angels on High

life and living

A single building-shaking rumble is all it takes to flood memories, of watermelons and lemonade and the everpresent scent of Banana Boat sunscreen. Flipflops and heat, the lazy dog days of summer spent lounging in the shade made by cooling towers on the top of the NEC building. Of wiping off sticky hands and reaching up to touch planes so massive and imposing by contrast to the smallness of child fingers. Being placed into the pilot seat and sitting there, surrounded by the unlucky ones who didn’t know those flying, and dreaming. Looking out that window and seeing possibilities and futures.

And of wanting so very, very badly to be in the sky. I would stand in awe of the massive planes and their arial ballets, thet swooshes and zooms and magnificence, and my body would wake up from the heat and laziness and I would feel so, so alive. Reaching up in vain effort to touch the planes as they came so close to the roof I could see inside, wave to those upside down friends. For so many years, I was convinced I’d break into Top Gun, and I’d become one of the first top female fighter pilots in the country. Dad slowly talked me out of enlisting; he knew it would be a bad fit for me, but the sound still brings that longing to be in the air, moving at such speeds, the only thing between me and the sky a bit of metal and plastic.

To this day, when I hear them, I jump up and run outside and I search and search until I see their sleek form shoot across the sky. Today, I saw them doing something I’ve never seen before (plane at an incline yet flying foward, not in the direction of its nose), and I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared, and found myself once again reaching out, trying to capture a bit of their essence as they blew by. Later on campus, I stood spinning in the quad as they flew over UW time and again.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to reconcile the fact that the planes themselves are machines of war, that they’re being used to kill people. But I can’t shake the nostalgia and awe, and longing to be in the sky. Give me an airshow every day of the year, if it means those planes will only be used to show off the skill of the pilots and the grace of the engineers.

Missing J

life and living

Oh, when I’m lonely, I lie awake at night and I wish you were here. I miss you.

It’s been a year, and yet I still see you. I see you on campus and walking down Broadway, I see you paused in front of a store, head tilted near verticle. Your shape, your form and movement, everywhere. And it’s never you, and it never can be and never will be you. I wonder when I will adjust?

I sat for a long while outside The Paper Zone, just staring at the Krispy Kreme. I hadn’t known it was there, or I might have skipped going. But I didn’t, and I did, and so I sat. I thought about dinner at Outback, a nod to tradition, but knew I wouldn’t make it through without breaking down. In fact, save two hiccups during the day – and not while facing Krispy Kreme – I didn’t break down until bedtime, now. And now I can’t stop crying.

I miss you.

I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you.

This existance of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

What is born will die,
What has been gathered will be dispersed,
What has been accumulated will be exhausted,
What has been built up will collapse,
And what has been high will be brought low.

The only thing we really have is nowness, is now.
-The Buddha

Atlantis: Runner

Stargate

95% of deadly is still deadly.

First, the catty:
– Am I the only one who hears Tayla and hears Teila? Mkay, didn’t think so, and really needed to get that off my chest.
– So. Ronan Dex. We trade one black man for another? Hrm, okay. Hard not to be cynical, but the reason for Francks leaving has never been explained.
– Dr. Beckett? Change the accent from Scottish to Irish, and you’d have a decent clone of my pulminologist. No wonder I like him (either him).

Okay, catty aside, I liked this episode. It had a good mix of humour and drama, and I thought that the introduction of Ronan Dex was, overall, interesting. I do hope they get the character to enunciate a bit clearer, though – I had a hard time understanding some of the lines. The interaction between McKay and Ford was also interesting to watch, but I’d like to know what happened to the rather self confident and assured McKay that could handle a gun and understood military hand signals; he’d emerged out of the sniveling hulk of Rodney at the end of last season, and was a very interesting character growth. Hiatus seems to have reversed that trend, and he’s back to sniveling and largely being unable to handle a gun.

The dialogue was witty and seemed to snap, and reading the Mallozi blog has made me appreciate certain things, like hanging Hewlett upside down, quite a lot more. (Apparently the season is loaded with “beat up on McKay and otherwise put him in stupid, uncomfortable, and revealing positions”. I’m okay with this, especially that last bit.) The cats were sort of puzzled why I found that particular scene so funny; it was largely because I knew what drove its inclusion in the script.

The change in Ford – I like how so much of it is driven of his need for Sheppard’s approval. It was an underlying theme of their relationship last year, and seeing it blossom in this manner is creative, and an interesting force behind the madness.

Mitch Peloggi’s character – commander of the Daedalus – he’s going to get irritating quickly if he doesn’t drop his attitude towards Sheppard. Yes, he didn’t get the post he wanted, boohoo, he’s commanding the spiffiest fucking ship in, uhm, two galaxies. Perhaps he should drop the attitude and work on getting along with the people he’s apparently going to be working with.

I’m getting catty again, aren’t I? I suppose that’s a sign of the fact that I’ve basically covered the plot of this particular episode: introduce Ronan Dex, further establish Ford’s off his rocker in his own special way. A simple plot, so the rest becomes commentary. I do wonder what the Wraith will think of/do with Ford.

Atlantis does still show having the touch of some established SG-1 writers, and continues being relatively well directed and acted. If it continues improving on itself at this steady pace, it’s going to consistently outshine SG-1 in very short order.

SG-1: Origin

Stargate

Tonight, Mitchell appears to be O’Neill-Lite, with perhaps a touch more history/education. Really, I think O’Neill-Lite ist just about the worst direction they could go with the character, so I hope his smartass nature gets tempered or at least changed so that it’s different. I don’t want to dislike him, but he needs to stand out on his own and genuinely be a strong character or it’s just not going to work. Right now, the southern boy version of O’Neill just isn’t working for me.

Now, Bridges as Landry makes a general that I can believe; (I will admit that O’Neill as general was never quite believable). It’s nice to see him getting some more lines and further character development; he’s a softer version of General Hammond.

As for Daniel… can we slow him down? Maybe let him share some of my sedatives? Cuz really, boy – BREATHE! We don’t need two fast talkers, and McKay had the role first. That said, poor guy. He always seems to get these gigs where he gets to single-handedly piss of an entire race of beings that think they’re gods.

The Ori are interesting, and Julian Sands was fabulous. The whole “the Ascended are the bad guys, we’re the good guys, we’ll kill you if you disagree” is not a terribly convincing line. I do enjoy the whole “flames are bad because it’s part of the Ori religion, so they’re going to be hellfire and damnation and all that is bad in this new galaxy”. I do have to wonder at any politicalness to the crusades overarching theme of this new badguy, though; subtle message or blunt 2×4? A very subtle balancing act done at the end, though, to appease any hardcore Christian that might still be watching the show.

Storyline, Origin didn’t terribly excite me. It wasn’t as godawful as last week’s episode; the overall silence and lack of focus on Vala helped quite a bit (what can I say, I can’t stand the character). I quite liked the resolution of the Daniel/Vala probelm though – Teal’c and Mitchell I buy being teammates more than anything else, and that was a very clever way to get out of that particular bind. I also admit to enjoying the new religious twist/brimstoney effect, although I do recall that in previous seasons the particular Hell myth was linked to a Goa’uld. I suppose the answer will be that said Goa’uld just appropriated an Ancient/Ori myth, but it’s still a touch convenient to be able to redo this particular mythos with more dramatic effect.

The final three minutes were rough in an unexpected way. There was an awkwardness between Daniel and O’Neill (which I suppose was to be expected), and I still haven’t heard them explain where O’Neill went off to – perhaps I just missed it that first episode. Time to go bug other fans and find out.

It was also nice to see the storyline spread out more among the entire cast of characters, Lexa Doig included. It is an ensemble show, after all. Mostly it seemed that this show was designed to further the overall season plot and introduce a few more people. I can handle that; it had some clever lines, and there was an obvious point to it. Nothing bad, nothing great.

Oh, and Lou Gossett Junior? Just looks scary.

Om Mani Padme Trek

...and everything else

Sometimes things happen that make me realize it’s not so much that I chose to be a researcher, as I simply am. Case and point: I was flipping through the TV listings for something to watch while doing laundry (yes, I did laundry, should I now capitalize it as Laundray?), and came across a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode featuring Pulaski. “Oh right,” I thought, “Gates McFadden wasn’t on the series the second season. You know, I don’t think I ever knew why…” Two and a half hours later…

So far, the best answer I’ve found is that Paramount execs were unhappy that there wasn’t as much conflict amongst cast members, and McFadden was offered up as a sacrifice. Rumours of her wanting a significant salary increase came about after the letter-writing campaign and push by Patrick Stewart to bring her back, facillitated by no one liking Pulaski, and the actress playing her (Diane Muldaur) accepting an offer to join LA Law because she didn’t fit in with her Trek cast mates. Gene asked McFadden to rejoin the cast, and she negotiated her salary from a position of power.

Of course, that only spent about 20 minutes to find. The rest of the time I spent reading odd trivia about Trek and reading transcripts of convention speeches and other fun things. (Most favourite trivia: the Dalai Lama watched TOS and liked it, especially Spock. While Next Gen was filming, about 20 Tibetan monks invaded the set for an afternoon, and crowded into a transporter room to have their picture taken. Brent Spiner, in full Data-gear, stands in their midst.)