Poignancy in Space

This post from Anti-Popper is brought forward to here to inaugurate a new series of 'posts from the past' - historical division - sci fi. Heh heh. The humanity of Adama and Jameson - is doggited.

"Saturday 16 December 2006

galactica: my friend the blob

"I can’t find my ancient copy of Battlestar Galactica 2: The Cylon Death Machine, and it hurts. Of course, because I’m such a fan of the current series, it doesn’t seem likely that a novelisation of the original, cheesy Battlestar Galactica would have a place in my heart, right? I mean, my brother got me Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions for my birthday — I couldn’t possibly like this kind of trash, which barely passes for “real” science fiction, right? But I was a big fan of the original Galactica, for two reasons:

1. While it was undoubtedly drab in comparison to Star Wars, Galactica was shown frequently enough on TV to simply work its way, on a rhythmic level, into my playground fantasies when I was seven years old. And it’s not as if I hadn’t found “finer” sf, either — I was also reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories at the time.

2. By fleshing out all the aspects of the show that were atrophying under the family-oriented network TV regime of the day, the novelisations made Galactica seem so much better than it really was. Like many media tie-ins, Robert Thurston’s first couple of Galactica novelisations were based on the original scripts, and written several months before shooting. In Galactica’s case, this meant Cylons that weren’t clumsy walking toasters who couldn’t shoot straight (a last-minute change dictated by the network), but murderous lizards who (according to Thurston) thought bitchy thoughts about their superior officers, waited impatiently for promotions, and were driven crazy by the itches that developed under all that heavy armour!

Writing about my loss of The Cylon Death Machine is particularly poignant for me because the event is so recursive. From what I can remember, the novel’s narrative was interspersed with extracts from Commander Adama’s personal log — The Adama Journals — in which he muses about all sorts of seemingly random and inconsequential shit in the middle of the tactical emergencies of the time. Adama’s log is, of course, very bloggy. In this log, he finds the time to mourn how so much Caprican culture was destroyed in the apocalyptic Cylon attack on the Colonies. But rather than honour high culture, Adama chooses to remember pulpy kids’ science fiction: his own favourite childhood book was called something like Sharkey the Star Rover, and featured the insterstellar wanderings of an orphan human boy, Sharkey, and his best friend, an alien blob called — of all things — Jameson. Adama requests of a search of all the archives in the fleet, but alas, the book is lost forever. Just as I’m not quite sure whether I remember this book correctly, Adama wonders if his memory of Sharkey The Star Rover is accurate. Sharkey loves his alien friend Jameson, who receives much racist abuse from other humans. And yet Sharkey also wishes Jameson were a real boy, instead of a blob, so that he could hold him, and thus physically express his love.

I miss The Cylon Death Machine, and thus, Sharkey The Star Rover."

[ tags: battlestar-galactica, culture, pop-culture, science-fiction, sf ]

Posted by jebni at December 16, 2006 10:44 AM | TrackBack"

Celebrities and heroes

Homesickness is hard to sustain when things seem to lurch still further towards cultural doom. This little photogenic scenario did it for me this morning: - a post by Ange from Melbourne where the state watches a little too closely. Howard's cops having released 28 photographs of people they want to talk to in connection with a recent protest. It makes me feel even more happy that you can see these pics on The Age news site in what looks like a flickr type slideshow format.

"January 18, 2007: In the wake of the protests against the G20 in Melbourne, and as numerous arrests continue to take place, police tonight released a series of photos, each one euphemistically labeled “person of interest.” Police are indeed perfecting their methods of surveillance and control ..." [archive S0metim3s]

That bit of surveillance no doubt has more value as a curious juxtaposition with the scenario everyone is watching too closely in London - the Celebitchy Big Brother race & bullying scam. BB/C4 offer us a screen onto which to project the vicious underside of the war on terror. Amply exposed on Lenin's tomb, from where I nicked the image, but reminding me of things said about other similar distractions from the main game. Despite my previous fascination with BB, this rich Celeb version makes me 'homesick' for the unadorned nastiness of the cop-photo-shoppery above. Below I include some choice excerpts from what is an (almost twice as long) excellent post from L-T:

"The whole point of Endemol's shit-fest on Channel 4 is to force together personalities so incompatible that normal human comity would be impossible, never mind solidarity under the stress of sensory deprivation and constant surveillance. ... I suppose we had better be grateful that the recipient of the abuse was not a Muslim. If she was, we'd be hearing from many quarters that Muslims are far too sensitive about legitimate criticism. "Ah, complaing about being called a 'dog', is she? What do these Muslims have against canines, I wonder?" Had those who burned the effigy in India been Muslim, we would no doubt be hearing about the sinister Islamic threat to free speech. Not that it matters what religion she adheres to inside the 'house', eh? Shilpa Shetty is variously a "dog", a "Paki" (this bit C4 denies, saying the word was "cunt"), someone who - being from India - must be unhygeinic and eat with her hands, thus giving other housemates "the shits", someone who both needs to "go back to the slums" and also visit them for the first time and be "real", someone who is "trying to be white", and someone who should "fuck off home". ... The reactions have been, er, interesting: Channel 4 greasily asserting that there has been no overt racism, titter titter (as if we didn't know that they had assessed their candidates down to the last tic, and fully expected outbursts of racism); New Labour politicians covering their already hideously mired flanks by uttering obsequies about tolerance; David Cameron saying that anyone "who doesn't like this racism, there's a great regulator, its called the 'off' button." The latter is a curious response, surely designed to tickle the fancy of racist Tories and those obsessed with whatever is called 'the nanny state' this week." [L-T]

1 Comments:

John Hutnyk said...

Feeling a bit Jaded now? It is disappointing me a lot that all over the commentary on the Shilpa Shetty - Jade Goody Big Brother scam people are debating whether its racist or not, class or not, bullying or not [yes, all of the above, of course], but no-one seems keen to see this as a much bigger and more revealing displacement of the unspoken debate and politics we know is right there in front of us but the press and the piggy-pollies refuse to have, or are unable to have. That is the peculiar spin-cycle that makes up the contemporary system-wide racism of the global order. It amazes me that the Prime Minister has to face discussion of BB at question time in parliament, but carries on bombing, killing, destroying Afghanistan, and Iraq, regardless. And with little time for questions of anything that matters, it all gets displaced into television (and The Trial of TB was another example of the same). Even the much beloved Russell Brand suddenly feels the need to preface his comedy routines with seriousness, but does not make the displacement equation. Is it only my dysfunctional take on things that makes me see this as the 'dream-work' of the war on terror? For me this is the consequences of foreign policy as clear as day, but we cannot debate that. The double take is cod-outrage, and the February 15 2003 mobilisation against the war remains unanswered. Ahhh, damn it, f only there were opportunities for Davina McCall to interview Blair after he was voted out of the house...

12:04 AM

'television from Harlem' and the 'anti-Hoon laws'

Its not all that often that I get really homesick, but this item twanged a few lumpen-nostalgia chords. The article contains some choice quotes. Councillor Roz Blades in particular seems the most stupid with her 'television from Harlem' quip, and the very idea that there are 'anti-hoon laws' makes me not at all surprised that 'flares were thrown' and 'police were pelted with bottles'. I do want to know how this is related to the Cronulla beach race trouble of a little over a year ago? So, is there a racial element to this? I mean beside Councillor Blades' racist analogy? From afar it seems like normal Dandy friday night entertainment - people brought their sofas out to sit and watch the burn-outs in style. I suppose they trashed the DVD store because it did not have enough rental copies of the video of the hoon event...

This is from Melbourne's newspaper The Age:

Burn-out crowd goes on the rampage

This Blockbuster Video store was trashed and looted by a mob of youths early on Saturday.
Photo: Justin McManus

Chantal Rumble
January 14, 2007

Six men face charges after a crowd turned on police during an illegal burn-out gathering in Melbourne's south-east early yesterday.

More than 1000 people, including women and children, congregated at the corner of the Princes Highway and Elonera Road, Noble Park, on Friday night for a regular illegal burn-out session, but police cordoned off the intersection soon after 1am yesterday and the crowd became violent.

A DVD store was trashed and looted, and police were pelted with bottles.

A pizza shop and an electrical goods store were also damaged, two bus stops were smashed, bins were set alight and road signs destroyed. Witnesses reported seeing flares thrown.

"My reaction is complete and absolute horror," said Roz Blades, councillor and former mayor of the City of Greater Dandenong. "In 30 years in this area, I have never seen anything like it. It looks more like something you'd see on television from Harlem."

Fifty extra police and the dog squad were called in to control the situation. Six men, aged between 18 and 32, were arrested and released but are expected to be charged with traffic and criminal offences.

Police seized five cars, some under new anti-hoon laws.

The busy corner, with a 24-hour McDonald's restaurant on one corner, has been a favourite Friday night hang-out for hoons and their fans for decades.

Cr Alan Gordon, chairman of Dandenong Council's community roads reference group, said the site's popularity had been growing, attracting some 2000 people last weekend, many bringing couches from which to watch the illegal burn-outs.

The trend attracted extensive talkback radio coverage last week, which witnesses said added to the hype and the push towards violence, similar to the build-up to the Cronulla riots in December 2005.

"They are just Aussie kids going out for a Friday night," Cr Gordon said.

"It just amazes me that they are so organised: the radio, SMS, their website. They are just so well equipped. I would never have thought we'd have this sort of thing in Melbourne, but now we do. It's a bit of a shame."

He said the police and council had worked closely last week to prevent violence at the burn-out events, but to no avail. "A lot of the residents around here have been here for many, many years and I don't think they are going to take things into their own hands, but I think they expect both the council and police to work together to fix the problem," Cr Gordon said.

"Police and the council have been working together this week and look what we've got to show for it." He described the police response of about 50 officers and a dog squad as inadequate. "I would have thought you would have had more police. Fifty or 70 cops, compared to over 1000 youths, isn't enough."

Victoria Police acting Assistant Commissioner Gavin Barry said although extra traffic units were in the area on Friday night, "we had no way of knowing that the gathering would become so hostile and threatening towards police".

Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said officers were "hopelessly outnumbered" and called on Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon to urgently audit police resources."

Google Mail - TV looking for medical Anthropologist

There are numerous reasons to despair for anthropology as a discipline, but it could be TV that is suffering even more. Evidence - this email recently sent to all in the Goldsmiths department looking for the future Davina McCall of Ethnography (Davina? She has an 'interest' in anthropology, surely...)

Google Mail - TV looking for medical Anthropologist:
"TV looking for medical Anthropologist" 10:46 pm (9 hours ago)

We are a production company called Optomen Television and are
currently looking for someone with an interest in anthropology to
become the presenter of a new series. We are searching for someone
that would relish a voyage of discovery, investigating medical
beliefs, remedies and cures across the globe. We would like our
presenter to get deeply involved in the experience, to immerse
themselves in a community rather than commentate from afar.

If this is of interest, please email with any relevant information
and we will get back in touch.

Many thanks and best wishes, My email is listed below.

Zara Lansdale
Assistant Producer
Optomen Television
zara.lansdale@optomen.com"
.

Poco TV

Abhijit Roy writes:
> have you received the copies of the journal? they were
> posted more than a month back.

he's referring to the Kolkata based Journal of the Moving Image vol 4. The article is called something like 'Postcolonial Television'. ITs out, but I have not yet seen it. So this is to be updated I guess...
.