I'm not sure I believe in loving something ironically anymore. I used to, and yesterday I saw my third Twilight film in the theater for reasons other than love, but I think that fails the irony test as well. (Don't worry, I didn't pay full price.) I've long been against the concept of a “guilty pleasure,” because pleasure without harming anyone else should be reason enough in itself not to feel guilty. But what's pushed me over the irony line is T.J. Hooker.

I once reassured a friend that I would never, ever fall so far as to watch T.J. Hooker, let alone like it. That is one step too far, I said, even for William Shatner. But you know what?
( Read more... )

Minimalist Magic
The Star Trek Look
By Mervyn Nicholson (thanks to zainin666 for the link)

"By treating the style of the original series as integral to the show — and not as a kind of regrettable defect — we can get a better grasp on the Star Trek phenomenon itself."

This article covers a lot of territory under the umbrella of discussing Star Trek as Minimalist in execution and thought (in opposition to the later series.) The use of color, the settiness of sets, and the expression of emotion are referred to, as well as Shatner's acting style. I'm linking and excerpting because it ties into something I was talking about before, about the way that Shatner/Kirk play off each other to create something strange and appealing without being freakish. The importance of emotion, of the face, in a drama without much of anything else to look at is, I think, important in understanding the success of a show without much in the way of special effects or budget to recommend it. Even if I'm not sure I buy the over-arching idea that Minimalism can tie it all together.

Aside from my fervent nodding along to the idea that Shatner's acting is appropriate to the form and style of the show (I am converted, preach to me!), it is interesting to note that the "deficiencies" of TOS can certainly be put down to budget issues and to a lack of style, but they don't have to be. I like a lot of how it looks, and I think it's valid to approach these decisions as choices. Choices bound by necessity, sure, and altered by chance. But the colored lighting on faces and bare walls, the orange skies, the simple uniforms--all that is stuff missing from the later series and which I miss from later series, not through nostalgia but because there's an actual dramatic resonance to placing the action in that context. And maybe that helps explain why someone like me can come to this show now, as an adult who wasn't even around when it came out, and prefer it.

Anyway, because it's me, have some stuff about Shatner:

( Trek owes it all to Shatner )

Tl;dr--Basically, Shatner works on the small screen through close-ups, and the impressive mobility of his face and its ability to transmit emotion. He's good-looking, but not too good-looking, fit but not too fit, which lures us in. He is familiar. And yet he embodies a contrast between the macho leading man and a fluid emotionalism, in sharp contrast to a more typical, and less interesting, Jeffrey Hunter type. This, I think, is crucial: "It is not narcissism that he projects but, like him or not, happiness, an intense delight in his role." This is what I feel, watching Kirk work. And why I think the show is still relevant for me, when exploring masculine stereotypes and the male role in media and society. Well. And in being awesome.

One day, I'll write about something else.

1965 was a busy year for William Shatner. It was the year he starred in a television series about a brash, headstrong young idealist who takes charge and makes impassioned speeches about truth, justice, and the American way. It was the year he filmed the first feature film in Esperanto. Oh, and he also filmed the second pilot for Star Trek.
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I know some of you will want to see this, though yes, it's fannish and obsessive! My notes are spotty, and my memory more so: I concentrated on the shatnoyish bits as I figured those would be of primary interest. Mostly it was just nice to realize, hey, those are real people up there. It blew my mind, a little, I have to say, as not-fangirly as I expected to feel. (Yes, self-deluded, I know.)

( Public appearance )
That is all the notes I took, and most of what I remember. It was really fun, and they have clearly honed their "act" over the years. By which I mean, while they have a few stock stories they trot out, it feels like they're more interested in entertaining themselves, and they've made that entertaining for others. They're not interested in giving a big grand show, they're over it, and they realize they don't have to. I'd much rather watch them shoot the breeze about what they did that week than tell the same stories that are in their books anyway, and the genius of it is that they can get away with that because it works on stage. The public/private aspects of that are a little confusing for me to tease out, because they move further and further away from being famous for Star Trek until, for some of us, they are notable simply for their personae in appearances like these. Which are, to varying extents, both real and performed. Now, they wouldn't be that without Trek, but figuring out the layers there makes my head spin a little.

Sunday, lettered and I went to see Shatner and Nimoy speak at a convention in Vancouver. I've more to say about that, but I wanted to get these pics up.

These pics aren't very good, by the way. I was really far back, and my zoom lens is pretty slow. So the non-flash ones have blur, and the flash ones have their own problems given how short I am and the reflection off people in front of me. I still thought some of them were worth sharing, as long as you don't judge my photography skills too harshly.

( LARGE images )

I have things I should probably talk about, that might be interesting, but I keep falling into that cycle of "I'm too tired/busy/braindead to do it justice right now" which is what leads to not posting for months (and it also why I fail at emailing/calling/socializing back).

But for now, in an effort to just babble about what's on my mind, and to risk everyone going "good lord, not Kirk again," I want to talk about something I just saw on fandomsecrets. The secret itself doesn't matter much: it's several days old now, and basically said "I can't read TOS fanfiction because it highlights how much of a joke Shatner is/was when you try to make that character make sense."

I thought this was interesting because, as you know, I don't feel that way at all. I used to, when I hadn't seen the show, and I think to a large number of people who haven't and many who have, Shatner is a joke. Obviously anon can feel however they feel, and part of what's interesting to me is how we all gravitate towards particular things that are invisible to others even when we're all ostensibly looking at the same thing.

There are two things I'm talking about here, in my messy way: both that I don't think the character of James T. Kirk is a joke (though he is frequently ridiculous), and that I wonder how certain characters or shows or whatever else (movies books music historical periods/figures) acquire such wholly different resonance with individuals.

( Part one: Kirk )

( Part two: You )

Yes, this deserves a separate post.

If any of you have ever wondered "why SHATNER?", this GQ article, I feel, wholly outlines my great love for the most ridiculous man alive.

Shatner! The Long. Strange. Never-Boring Journey of a National Treasure (and yes, we know he's Canadian)

"Soft, Andrew. And sweet! And of the ocean. Briny and free. Unsullied by rice or lemon. Or 'soy.' The jelly of it, Andrew—" now rising again—"the JELLY! No, wait! More like a CLOUD. Something you wouldn't believe could sustain a set shape! A sweet cloud of meat, Andrew. A SWEET CLOUD OF MEAT!"

Anyone who cares will have already seen this, but I can't stop thinking about it. I don't even know. On the off chance you haven't seen it, I am compelled to offer.



As potatofiend said, the amazing thing is that he actually said all this. He makes. No. Sense. And yet I can't stop watching. I love that someone saw this interview and knew what needed to be done. Knew, and did it, and shared it. This is my favorite thing ever since the Common People Kirk/Spock video.

For those of you wondering: no, I don't know when this will end, and I'm sorry if you friended me because I seemed intelligent and balanced and occasionally said things worth reading. Perhaps I will be so again. I honestly haven't been this annoying since I was 15 or so. I thought it was gone forever. Remember those posts I wrote about remembering obsession fondly, and wishing I could get it back?

Er, yeah.

Here, have another song that I only found out about a year or so ago and could not believe was kept from me so long, how completely it, too, has taken over my brain. "Pretty Ballerina" by the Left Banke. This is the only YouTube version I could find, and it's a video of a record. But you can probably find it on last.fm or the like, if you've never heard it.

I know you know I find them both unbearably pretty, but I hadn't really thought about this.

( is this too much of a stretch? )

Not that it matters, but just a little bit?

What I would really, really like from this show is a different/no soundtrack, different editing, fewer broad reaction shots, and the absence of anyone not Crane or Shore.

I hate when things I like are entangled in things I do not. It makes shunning them much harder, but watching them rather painful.

In other words: MORE SHATNER.

In other news, I am back from Ohio, where I spent the past week with my family. Photos and all that coming soon, though I will be somewhat scattered still as I have a friend coming in tomorrow for a week and computer issues based on having moved the computer into the living room (where there is no internet) to replace the television which is in the shop. Priorities are interesting, aren't they?

How are you? Anything exciting going on? Any links I should know about? What have I been neglecting?

What I want from fic--and you
I think the single-greatest thing about the new Star Trek movie is how it's injected new life into the fandom, and how that's not at all isolated to the actors/characters from the new film. I have talked to so many people who've gotten into TOS via the film, and thus far my interactions in fandom have been really positive and inclusive. (Hell, ontd_startrek ate up my Intruder picspam, which is pretty funny considering the community and the fact that the movie I was capping was a social problem film about racism in the South.)

The problem is, perhaps, that there's too much.

I love Kirk/Spock. I'd definitely read other pairings done well. But here's the thing: where do I start? (I know I've asked this before, but my request has been refined and maybe more of you have been asking these questions now, too.) The explosion of fannish activity means that the K/S is overwhelming. Those of you reading fic, how do you decide what to read if you need to be selective? Where do you go? Whose recommendations do you trust?

I'm more interested in the characters from TOS, but I've read some fantastic XI fic, as well. I like angst, I like humor, I like anything good. I like stuff that examines the meeting of both of those worlds, the questions of identity raised by the whole nu/Prime situation and which the film very conveniently allows to be canon. I like stories about both "how does nuKirk become the awesome we know he is destined to be?" and "how do nu Kirk and Spock become the awesome we know they are destined to be?"

What I want from Kirk/Spock
In an effort to educate myself about classic K/S fic, I've been working through a couple rec lists, and I've observed something interesting. Thus far, I haven't seen a single one that doesn't involve a very schmoopy mind-meld pair-bond situation in which Kirk and Spock finally figure it out, hook up with the aid of touch telepathy, and are the most perfect couple foreverandeveramen. I adore the leading-up-to bit, the misunderstandings and the way their respective characters complicate that revelation. I've read some good stuff involving doubt and will and, say, Kirk's decision to sit behind a desk after their five-year mission. What I haven't seen, and very much want to, is fiction dealing with what I would consider the obvious problems of having complete and total access to the mind of the person in whom you've invested everything. Most of the barriers in these stories are outside imposed; Kirk and/or Spock are kidnapped or sick or attacked or whatever and that endangers their relationship.

But what about their own natures? What makes them work as a couple, for me, or even as friends or partners, is the way they complement and defy one another. I'm not saying it needs to be some drawn out domestic melodrama ending only in tears. But don't you think that Spock might see something in Kirk's mind or memories that disturbs him? That he can't reconcile? Wouldn't a mind like Spock's have an alien quality Kirk might not always understand or deal with well? I like a dose of schmoop once in awhile. But most of these fics lose their edge once the hookup happens and Kirk and Spock lose theirs.

I want that edge. I wonder if this is a function of where the fandom was, because it does seem like a genre convention that K/S are soul-bonded in the most comfortable and least problematic way. Maybe that's what people want(ed) to read; it's a very clear wish-fulfillment fantasy. Maybe that's a logical extension of what people see on the show. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. But I would like to see something different. Something examining that psychology.

(But you're more than welcome to send along links to schmoopy you like particularly well, because I can be squishy, too.)

What I want from William Shatner
( cut for epic obsessiveness. seriously, not for the faint of heart. )

[Note: I'm really sorry to be so behind on my f-list. I find it difficult to find time to both write and keep up on LJ, so writing has taken precedence. But I will try to catch up, and if you do have a post or something you want me to look at, please let me know.]

Last year, inspired by Orson Welles (whom I still adore, no worries!) I wrote:
See, it's been ages--it feels like years--since anything's hit me this hard. When I was a teenager, and through college, certain things would grab hold of me and not let go...

What's funny about this now is that I think this latest Star Trek/William Shatner thing is ten times worse. I don't understand how I'm still functioning; I haven't felt this distracted, hopped up, and ridiculous since those good old days when it didn't really matter if I lost myself in it. And yet I look ahead and know it's gonna end and I am already sad, because as inconvenient as this is it feels good. I'm writing again. It's crazy that this should be the thing, especially since dammit I'm running masked_ball and haven't written anything for it and frankly have no interest in anything else. And it's, you know, so old hat.

Side note: It seems that my "new type" is pretty-faced, arrogant assholes who are often labeled hams and later in life get really fat and never stop trying. Whether this is more or less reasonable than my previous preference for the at-worst psychotic/at-best emotionally unavailable ectomorph is debatable.

So. Links and stuff for those so inclined:

* more_shatner. What it says on the tin. There's nothing here yet, but I discovered he didn't even have a community! Which is sad!
* Premiere: Shatner/Nimoy fic (by me) about them watching the new movie. Rated G.
* Home by Lanaea. Awesome WIP that is firmly based in the reboot universe but has glimpses of that Jim Kirk reaching towards what he'll become. Also adorable K/S.
* Star Trek Memories was really entertaining, though not, you know, the best writing ever. Maybe I'll do a post about this, but Shatner really comes across as someone who doesn't know he's being self-centered and reacts okay to being told about it, which makes him endearing if you like him and insuffrable if you don't. I loved the story about him getting angry at some guy who rammed his daughters at a go-kart track, deciding he was Captain Kirk, and suddenly realizing that the flying leg kick he was so proud of disobeyed the laws of physics. Luckily, before he tried it. Also the one about stealing Nimoy's bicycle. They're sort of the most adorable thing ever, at this point, all old and mellow and forgetting they fought and stuff.

Some choice ontd_startrek posts:
* Vulcan pick-up lines
* On-set gifs from the TOS days, including this one:
( cut for cuteness )
I die a little time every time I look at it.

If you're not lucky, there will be picspam.

Guys, I have a problem. It's not even an interesting/original problem. It might even be sort of shameful in its very pedestrianness. But I find myself unable to think about anything but Captain Kirk right now. The Shatner One. Which means I should probably go to sleep or something. Or stop watching two episodes a day? Never that!

So here's the thing. TOS fic has been around for a long time, as we all know. I have no idea how/where to dive into it, and I particularly want fic that's germane to the series. Not because I hate the movie but because I want, you know, the fic where Kirk takes the Venus drugs or has more adventures with evil!-or-robot!Kirk or whatever. You know. Slash is good too. Whatever.

So any of you who know what I'm saying, where do I start? I assume there are good rec lists and stuff. This isn't even nearly my first bout with Kirk-love, I've just been too intimidated before. And I'm far too intimidated to write my own fic.

Disclaimer: Yes, yes, Kirk-love is shameful and all that and I realize Spock is awesomesauce. But as I've explained before, Spock is the guy I'm used to loving. Kirk is the one that's so wholly unexpected I can't really get over it. And so need fic.

Five things lafemmedarla associates with me:

( The Daroga )

( Erik/Daroga )

( Julian Sands )

( Books )

( William Shatner )

I did not just write a real-person drabble.

I was reading about William Shatner (as one does at work), and came cross this gem from Playboy:

Playboy: Who is better in bed, Captain Kirk or T.J. Hooker?
Shatner: One is a giver and the other is a taker. So it works beautifully.

And I wrote this:

Kirk glanced appraisingly at Shatner’s middle. “Haven’t been keeping yourself up, have you?” He looked up with a heavy-lidded expression that Shatner had perfected with hours before his bathroom mirror. He suspected it came to the captain naturally. “You’re still very pretty.” He leaned forward, standing far too close for comfort.

Shatner stared at him. “But I’m… not… gay!” he said.

“Well I am, if you want to be 20th century about it,” said Kirk, using a smile Shatner thought he’d patented—Nimoy called it his “smirk of unassailable ego”—“and you have to admit you think you’re gorgeous.” He stood back as if to let his double admire his Starfleet-approved physique. Shatner could only wish he looked like that. And he had to admit—he looked really good.

“Well you… aren’t so bad yourself,” he begrudged.

Kirk pouted. “True enough. Though I’ve never understood why you make me talk like I can’t get through a sentence without stopping to think.”