In addition to my regularly-scheduled blog entries (which, I admit, have been rather slim as of late…sorry!), I’m dishing up a delicious serving of quick but quotable links. That is, once you take a look at what I’ve got here, you’ll be talking about them to your friends, family and blogosphere buds.
So without further ado, here they are:
1. This comes via the website Cool Infographics, which offers a wide selection of ordinary data magically transformed into wonderful graphics detailing ideas, thoughts, facts and other items of note. Randy Klum is the author of both the site and the book of the same name. The link below details 50 years of visionary sci-fi computer interfaces, or, in other words, television shows and movies’ predictions for our digital futures, starting with “Lost in Space” and continuing onto the movie “Oblivion.”
2. There’s a whole batch of brash storm chasers following tornadoes, or hurricane hunters that fly planes directly into the eye of a hurricane to see what’s going on inside. I’ve witnessed tornadoes forming myself (not by choice) or totally nasty thunderstorms approaching while driving. Now imagine yourself aboard the Cassini spacecraft and zipping around Saturn. You’ve discovered a storm at its north pole unlike any other. Click here and prepare to be amazed…
3. Here’s a followup to the blog a wrote a few weeks ago regarding the zombie spaceship otherwise known as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3. Unfortunately, the hardworking citizen scientists were unable to steer the craft into a direction that would bring it closer to the moon. However, I highly recommend that you not cheat yourselves out of this remarkable adventure and learn more about its extended mission and those that made it possible. Visit its website here.
4. The Martian Confederacy by Paige Braddock and James McNamara is a relatively new online graphic novel. It’s the year 3535 and three outlaws struggle to save Mars, once a former vacation destination. Read it!
5. Thinking about the perfect Christmas present? You can’t go wrong with a genuine lightsaber! Pick out the perfect one for your favorite Jedi knight right here.
Clearly, we’ve grown bored with the Earth. It’s that lover one always strives to please, yet somehow no matter what one does, it’s never right. In the end, one gives up and goes elsewhere to find love and acceptance. Its inhabitants have, in equal parts, loved and abused it, ignored its warnings and acted surprised when it fought back. In the end, we all know it’ll get its way and beat us, but no one who borrows time trodding on its grassy plains and thick muddy fields ever thinks about that prospect.
Instead, our eyes shift upward, looking elsewhere for a better situation and a second chance.
Ever since the discovery of exoplanets, or those outside of our own solar system, space explorers have been determining which of those planets will host life and, optimistically, life that we can identify, and, how we’re going to to meet up one day. Average citizens, whose off-world opportunities are rather limited, have to rely on imagination and conjecture to supply possibilities. After all, those alien spaceships have to come from somewhere, right? They can’t all be bad. Those Antarians from the movie “Cocoon” did benefit the forgotten population of greying Floridians, even supplying a ride back to Antarea to seniors deserving of a new life.
Closer to home, it’s simpler to take advantage of our backyard planets and subsequent moons. Once humans figured out what planets actually were, they’ve also contemplated living upon them.
Take, for instance, the moon. Relatively ancient technology got us there and back for a short visit way back when. Nowadays, it’s entirely feasible to build a craft to ship us there enmasse to create a colony there, given its relative nearness. We already know there’s a supply of water and rare earth elements just hankering to be mined. Nearly every genre of science is hankering to conduct experiments there, driven by desire, curiosity and the uniqueness of the lunar environment. Americans, Russians, as well as private interests all have plans in the works to get up there by the 2020s and make a homestead claim.
Humans attach great meaning to the color red. Anger, temptation, danger and naughtiness are all meanings associated with it – just about everything we’re not supposed to have and desperately crave. I’m assuming that’s the subliminal reason why Mars is so magnetic. After all, this red planet practically begs someone to come hither. Probes coyly hint at the richness of Mars’ treasures. Water’s there, too, although not behaving the way we’d like it to be, adding more to its mystique. And like a forbidden love, the more determined we are to have it, the more money it costs to secure it. I’ve no doubt there’ll be a batch of humans trying to tame the Wild Red Planet’s surface, but it’ll come at a price, no one will be happy, but we’ll be never be satisfied until we at least have a first date. Then we’ll see.
Until then, I’m going to bide my time and see what openings Virgin Galactic has in the near future. I might want to book a ride.
With the impending arrival of “Star Wars: Episode Seven”, there’s all kinds of stuff being posted on YouTube. My husband sent me one link today and after viewing it, I drooled. If you hadn’t seen this one already, go ahead, take a glimpse:
Note the exquisite detail. Whoever did this is a dedicated geek worthy of award status.
Of course, if you have that, you’re also going to have to look at the leaked TMZ photos of Episode 7, too. Since these have been out for a while and no doubt everyone’s had a look already, I’m including these as a matter of convenience. You know, so you can geek out all in one space.
There’s a brisk business in the sci-fi fiction world wherein writers devise plots regarding worlds thousands of millions of light years yonder, only reachable by wormholes or imagination. At the same time, astronomers here on earth keep their eyes stuck to their favorite observing instrument of choice seeking out new planets, and, because there appears to be an obvious lack of wormholes (or so I believe; I could be wrong), they use their imaginations to conceive images of what these new worlds would look like.
On Independence Day, I sat on the porch of my parents’ house (so hard still to visit and not see my mother there) and flipped through the offerings on Endgadget. A posted article entitled, “The first potentially habitable alien planets we ever found – might not actually exist,” written by Richard Lawler caught my attention. In it, he writes about Gliese 581g, a planet orbiting Gliese 581, a star located in the constellation Libra. What made Gliese 581g so intriguing is its location in the “Goldilocks zone,” so called because it’s the correct distance from its sun to possess a moderate temperature for liquid water – not too hot or cold. It had also been determined that the planet didn’t spin on its axis and one side was perpetually in the dark. Artists created imaginative drawings, dreaming up visions of what this planet could look like.
Alas, it appears to have been all for naught. Spectrographic readings taken from Gliese 581 now indicate that 581g might actually not exist. How is that possible? The short answer is that the very signals that determined a planet might be located in a particular place also can be attributed to another source, say, “space stuff.” What would have produced a signal for the spectrometer to read no longer exists. It faded. Disappeared. Or, alternatively, may have been misread.
What a delicious idea for a plot.
Take it from the 581g’s point of view. Of course, that wouldn’t be the name of the planet. In my head, it’d be more like Ulele or Onodon – a whispery moniker reminiscent of mystery and exotica. For millennia the habitants, fiercely protective of their unique home, shrouded their visibility because of a unique feature Ulele/Onodon hosts. A signal accidentally launched by a careless Uleleian/Onodonite as it lit its cigarette on a rations replenish break, triggers a spectrograph that sits in the Earth lab of Dr. Jill Jackson, a red-headed ball of fire pouncing on a grand opportunity to stake her position as the sharpest astrophysicist in the universe. Having maxed out her credit cards and on the brink of credit collapse, she aims for the Nobel Prize and its generous financial reward and reveals her discovery to fellow scientists. Unbeknownst to her, the Ulele/Onodons are hot on her trail, thanks to sensitive instruments tuned to the merest hint of detective devices such as the one Dr. Jackson uses, and seek revenge…but not before re-cloaking their planet. Vowing to hunt her down like an unwanted cockroach in a Harlem apartment, Ulele/Onodon Fowler Falx is hot on her trail, and won’t stop until she’s obliterated and vanishes from view…just like 581g.
See, that explanation is much more entertaining than, “We thought we saw something…honest!…but it just…disappeared. Or, a similar incident as detailed above really happened and no one will admit it, because as any watcher of any sci-fi series involving space generally hide evidence regarding alien encounters. Since the jury is out on aliens’ actual existence, I’d like to seize this celestial development and give it a life, thicken its plot and give it hope for the future.
Keep your eyes to the skies, folks. The universe is filled with enigmas.
Hooray for America! Tomorrow is Independence Day, otherwise known as The Fourth of July. It’s a big deal in this part of the world, mainly because we get the day off, drink beer, eat BBQ and shoot off fireworks in the hope that the cops won’t show up and have you arrested for setting fire to the neighbor’s roof.
July 4th has always been about fireworks of a sort, especially when the aliens come and visit. You never know what they have up their sleeve, those sneaky gits. Take, for example, the well-regarded film, “Independence Day.” As pictured above, the aliens had plans about freeing Americans from the slinky tethers of the White House, because they knew to arrive there and blow it up. Out of all the grand buildings dotted across the USA, the aliens carefully researched the most appealing targets and thoughtfully removed them from the map. Intentionally, aliens freed ordinary Americans from the drudgery of law, order and the relative stability of a democratically-elected government…or made a statement about the Tea Party and the Koch brothers.
“Independence Day” Alien
Aliens, on occasion, are sticky. I could name a whole bunch of films that depict our off-world colleagues as drippy, goo-piles that slurp and ooze. It’s never explained why, but I’m certain if a human should, on the brink of death at the alien’s hand, mentioned that their acceptability rate would skyrocket if they only dried off a bit, then the inevitable all-Earth obliteration would be so much more palatable. So here’s our friend that I’ll name Indy, dripping. It could be that the crack in his skull is releasing vital body fluids, or it secretes when harmed/threatened. Either way, it’s gross. Stop it, already, before your cred plummets even further!
Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore, in “Independence Day”
Often, American presidents are played by grey-haired but dignified old(er) men. Who wasn’t impressed with prime-of-his-life, hunky Bill Pullman as the ex-Air Force pilot tackling those nasty aliens? Instead of sitting on his buttocks complaining about the state of things, he went out and did the job himself, just like Obama does when he gets sick of all that congressional shilly-shallying. And yes, he didn’t quite get rid of the problem (that was left to Randy Quaid, possessor of a problematic off-camera life), but gee, doesn’t he look hot just for trying?
Brent Spiner as Dr. Brackish Okun in “Independence Day”
What sci-fi film would be complete without data…or Data? Playing against type, Brent moved away from his android role in ST: TNG to this guy. Here’s something a few of you might not have known: around the same time (or at least the same decade), he appeared on Broadway in the play, “1776,” which is also about American independence. I went. Even took my parents. And damn, he was good. The man can sing!
Swaggering heroes Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum
Because this is an American film using an American holiday as its title, America is entitled, so to speak, to claim the victory. While three-quarters of the planet’s wiped out, Americans came in and saved the day! Woo hoo!
So what are you going to do tomorrow? My suggestion: watch completely predictable, over-the-top, stereotyped-rife Independence Day. What better way to celebrate?
And you don’t even need to be an American to do so.
Credit: Andrew Chattaway – Moon over Devil’s Tower
With kids and cute aliens helping out each other again this summer, I’d thought I’d focus on a few past endeavors by Hollywood that exploits children for the greater good of the alien’s quest to rule the planet, or at least have some practical use for it. Generally, all the aliens wind up doing is using the kids (or their friends/family) to stick it to the man, break laws, wreak havoc and make a positive, heartwarming impression on the kid(s) that will guide them through the rest of their lives.
Quick! Name five films wherein aliens and kids meet up, bond and learn important life lessons that will guide them through their formative year and beyond. Name two wherein Devil’s Tower figures prominently.
Drawing a blank? Here’s mine:
1) E.T. – An obvious choice, eh? Such a story: a lonely kid from a broken marriage meets up with an ugly-but-cute alien who is also a fugitive from those nasty government people. After a few tentative missteps, alien and kid learn a few things off of each other and discover that being different has its assets. Older brother totally embraces the outlaw aspect of harboring said fugitive, gets friends on board to skirt the law after a scary brush with it, then everyone goes on a quasi-high speed dodge-’em bike chase to lose the cops and send E.T. back to the planets. It’s a heartwarming tale meant to leave the viewer with a warm, glowing feeling…just like the pulsating chest of E.T. Kids also learn the value of sticking it to The Man by learning that all government officials are evil, hostile sorts who have absolutely no business wondering just exactly what kind of being from another planet goes after young innocents and teaches them how to get away with breaking nation security protocols.
2) Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Kid actually gets abducted by stereotypical, pale verdigris aliens and winds up in a ginormous ship from which mobs of abductees are eventually unloaded back to the planet where they were first plucked. It’s assumed they’ve been probed, charted, analyzed and documented for future use. Cherub child, abducted in early scenes of film, runs towards Mommy (who’s been skirting the law herself trying to get the kid back) once he’s set free. In the film, it’s mentioned that some have an unusual force beckoning them towards the expected alien landing site. Apparently, they were invited to attend, and the calling card is an unshakable mental image of a strange-shaped mountain located somewhere in the American West. Well, the kid was dragged through a doggie door. I get the distinct impression it wasn’t his idea to come to the party or he even had the faintest idea of what Devil’s Tower even was, where it stood or why he, of all kids, was selected for this particular space venture. Apart from being scarred for life with post-traumatic stress disorder from his abduction, we know that child is going to be just…fine…
3) The Day the Earth Stood Still – Little Bobby Benson’s Dad died in World War II, and Klaatu/Mr. Carpenter’s just the guy who’ll show him not only how to improve his math skills, but nuclear bombs are a bad idea because if anyone on Earth’s ever going to use them, Klaatu’s going to teach all those naughty, nasty Earthlings a big lesson they’ll never forget. The government’s going after Klaatu, so he uses Bobby’s mom Helen as his ticket to freedom and get back to Gort and that big ship sitting on the President’s Park ellipse. Kids learn that while they might be able to skirt the law together with their new-found alien friend, their parents might.
4) Mars Attacks! – Now, these are teenagers that wind up being victorious in the end. What’s cool about this one is Natalie Portman, as the president’s daughter Taffy Dale, winds up giving Lukas Haas, another teenager, the Medal of Honor, all because Slim Whitman yodeling makes the Martians heads explode. There really is no law to skirt here, but if nothing else, the cheese factor’s on overload, with Tom Jones providing plenty of it for the film. Natalie Portman would go on to play Padmé Amidala in the “first three episodes” of Star Wars films.
5) Paul – This one’s a bit of a stretch, but Paul landed on Tara Walton’s dog, who was stigmatized her entire life and called a freak because she met a real alien and no one believed her. A child at the time, she suffered insults from other kids thinking she was a reclusive nut case, which she did become. In the end, we find out that she isn’t really skirting the law, only trying to have a wonderful adventure to make up for the rotten hand that Paul dealt her by helping him escape the G-men out to nab Paul for the Big Guy. One can only imagine the misadventures that lie ahead for both she and her old friend, Paul. And yes, they go to Devil’s tower, where everyone know aliens go for a good time.
Each summer at the museum where I work, I teach kids how to make a movie. Part of the museum’s mission is early films, since D.W. Griffith shot 17 films in the area, so I take advantage of that and work in modern-day approaches to that medium.
With the use of an iPad or iPhone and the simple iMovie app, I’ve taught kids how to build a world of their own creation. Starting with simple concepts, I lead future DWGs through the process of creating a plot, characters, script, storyboard and then the final product.
My first shot at this was a few summers ago. I only had three kids sign up for it, but man, I couldn’t have asked for three better kids. Two boys, one girl, all aged 11. All shy at first, later on they became best buddies and at the end, total hams.
“So, what’s a good idea for a story?” I ask.
All three exchange looks but no plot lines.
“C’mon. Someone’s got to have something floating around,” I say. “Toss out anything that comes to mind.”
“Cops…and doughnuts, ” said one.
“Oh, yeah, and murder,” said another.
“Good, good…how can we bring that together?” I ask.
After a thoughtful pause, the third camper blurts, “I know! There’s this cop, see, and he’s dead, holding a doughnut and these two other cops find him floating in a river. When they use their cell phone to call for help, they turn into aliens. They need doughnuts to stay alive!”
BINGO! The plot falls into place easily. Pretty soon, I can’t stop any of them from reckless creation. The pages of the scrip fly out of the printer, the scenes are all crafted on the storyboards and before you can say “Oscar!” the shooting begins.
Now, we don’t have a back lot at the museum but we do have a lot of room. The kids used all of it to hash out one of the most surrealistic films I’ve ever seen. I prefer to consider it in the Deconstructionist genre…or Deconstructionist Sci-Fi, to be specific.
Some of the sound fades in and out (the kids were laughing too much holding the iPad and covered the mike or just didn’t pay attention to sound levels), I think there’s a finger over the lens at one point and there’s some real broad humor in it, but for a first effort, it was a blast. The kids and I never had so much fun doing anything. I couldn’t wait to get to work every day, and when camp was finished, I was totally sad.
Regrettably, I’ve not seen them since, but I can visit them anytime on YouTube.
Want to see what we did?
Here’s a trailer they made too, but it has little to do with the film
I gotta warn ya, this is pretty scary stuff…well, kind of…maybe…
I can’t wait for this August and the next summer camp I teach. I wonder what those kids are going to dream up this time…
I’ve come to notice that one thing many aliens have in common: they’re angry.
Why?
Now, I’m not talking all sci-fi films or TV series. In fact, some are really quite friendly and helpful. Paul, Alf and E.T. made good friends and lifelong connections with their earthling counterparts. And a quick look at Star Trek/Wars/Gate will tell you that there’s a bounty of otherworldly types just itching to make nice with us inferiors.
But then again, how many baddies have you come to enjoy over the years?
Let’s take, for example, the Borg. They’re a pretty economical lot. If you ask me, they become part of a collective, kind of like communism in its most evil form twinned with just plain communes. They readily adapt to any situation, yet they clearly enjoy being together. One could argue it’s the system making them relate to each other so well, but they’re so anxious to turn complete strangers into buddies that they readily adapt the most innocent of bystanders, hook them up to machine-like apparatus and get them angry enough to kill anyone the collective doesn’t like.
Now, here’s what I’m talking about: Mars Attacks!
These guys made no pretensions, minced no Ack! Ack! to their sworn enemies on Earth. All they knew is that they looked humble and willing for about twenty seconds, let us earthlings make fools of ourselves and then wreaked utter destruction. Heck, they even brought down Jack Nicholson! Yet it was a simple yodel that brought them to their knees and made their gooey green brains blow up like bubble gum in a microwave. Don’t tell me you didn’t get the parallel between that and germs in War of the Worlds.
Yet, for all the seeming variety out there, we keep coming back to this stereotype:
Now, this guy’s pretty cool and the star of his own film, Paul. But really, he is indicative of the stereotype. If anyone says they’ve seen someone that didn’t look like they belonged here on Earth, went finger-pointing up a section of the anatomy not commonly known for engaging positive thoughts, and generally dug around in someone’s insides uninvited, it would be similar to the person/thing above.
I’m asking: where did this image come from? Where did it originate? Is this the one imprinted in our brains that makes us react when we think we’ve seen something that doesn’t quite belong to our planet? Is this vision of an alien comforting to us, as in if we see something just like this, we’ll know to run (if we can)?
Will it angry with us?
Will be have the courage to ask why?
Will it accept a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers to kiss and make up?
But first, I’d like to know what it is that we did in the first place…
Moon, Stars and Beyond 