Tomorrow is the umpteenth Pine Bush UFO Fair, located in the northern edge of Orange County, New York. It’s a town that seemed to be plagued (or blessed) by an unusual amount of UFOs in the mid 1980s into the 1990s, although they’ve been spotted forever. Although I’m going to miss it this year (and I’m upset about that!), thousands will descend upon the place, seeking out stories from locals who’ve witnessed all sorts of strange happenings. There’s also a cosplay contest, live music, lectures from UFOlogists, authors and more.
What I like about this festival is it celebrates the incredible and unbelievable. I don’t doubt for one moment that the townsfolk have seen something, even aliens. But many others are skeptics, wondering what in the universe do all these aliens crave here? The Shawangunk Mountains? Horse farms? Corn fields? The Cup and Saucer Diner‘s coffee?
Who really cares.
What’s great is every nerd from miles around descends upon this quaint village and supports all the businesses, buys books from local authors, listens to good music played on Main Street and eats in its restaurants. And so should you.
Yours truly with a tribble and some like-minded folk
House Guests
Local Aliens
Neat Merch!
These days, reality is so hard on us humans. Every day we’re battered by news headlines that grow worse by the minute. When’s the last time you glanced at the paper or news app and didn’t cringe? So in a way, discovering that aliens are snooping through our hills kind of seems normal. I mean, it’s pretty hard to digest what’s happening to the United States these days, so why should the possibility of E.T. looking for a decent phone connection be out of the ordinary?
So if you find yourself driving on NY State Road 17 West, go on Exit 119 and head north on Route 302 until you hit Pine Bush. Even if you can’t make the festival, you never know what awaits you on your way there.
I got excited when the yearly reminder to sign up for October’s NY Comic Con appeared in my inbox. For years, I swore I’d love to attend but life always interfered somehow: had to work and couldn’t get off, or something was up with the kid, or after all the bills got paid, the till’s empty and so were my pockets.
This year, however, was different. The stars aligned in my favor. For once.
Upon receiving the notice I needed to fill in my fan verification form, a method of preregistration, I counted the days until the site opened. As one can imagine, in years past, tickets to this event were hotter than asphalt in Florida on an August afternoon, and acquiring them often required a Ferengi’s ability to pilfer, smuggle and trade. So who can blame the folks at NYCC to try a new method of ticket selling so that anyone who wanted to attend actually could…legitimately?
Once the Fan Verification site went live, I filled in my name, my husband’s name and my son’s. It asked for email addresses. Since I was treating the family for tickets, I put my own email in all three. I’ve purchased tickets for various and sundry trade shows in the same manner, so why should this be any different?
Several days later, I received a notice that tickets were now open for sale for verified fans. After waiting in an electronic queue for well over an hour (lucky I hit the button right as it came live!), I purchased three tickets and was instructed that I’d need to go to another site to complete the sale. I got excited. Not only was my family going, I planned to surprise my son with his ticket, since the event takes place right before his birthday.
As I opened the site’s page to complete the sale, I noticed my email address went in on my designated field, but not on my husband’s or son’s. Strange, I thought, and went to read up on what I might be doing wrong. As it turned out, each person needs his or her own email address. What? Aren’t I buying the tickets? How come? From NYCC’s twitter feed, I quickly learned that many boyfriends, girlfriends, uncles, aunts and cosplay girls and boys believed as I did.
Suddenly, we were all shut out of living our dream. No 2016 NY ComicCon for us.
I called. The helpful and polite person on the other end verified what in my heart I realized was true: every ticket needs its own email address. If not, we’re very sorry, but we have to refund your money.
First, I wanted to cry.
Then scream.
Then kick myself for not following directions the way I should.
Enthusiasm and past Javitz Center purchasing experiences clouded my decision-making for this event. I hated myself for not following the directions carefully, but then again, why shouldn’t one person be able to buy a couple of tickets? It comes down to a factor more than just hoping to surprise someone with a nice treat: fraud. This convention is so rife with people elbowing out the legit crowd with overpriced scalped tickets, the powers that be decided to try another way.
Unfortunately, there were an awful lot of people like me, and all of us, including me, let NY ComicCon folks know how devastated we all were. All we wanted was a good time, fanning it up with our ilk, grabbing autographs and a pile of merch to take home and savor.
Yet, inside of me, a gut feeling told me to hang on. Just wait, it said, there’s going to be good new yet…
And there was.
Out of the blue, I received a nice, polite email from NY ComicCon. Apparently, they heard us. Chose to do the right thing. Gave us a second chance.
We had a brief window to verify the fans we wanted to purchase tickets for, only 24 hours, but that was more than enough time. I scrambled online and fan verified both my husband and kid. Twenty-four hours after that, I purchased tickets for all three of us.
My heartbreak turned out to be a ticket to heaven. Now we’re all going!
“I’m telling’ ya, you’d better’d kick in a little more palm grease before I pull this duty again,” said Rathwalson, a bare-boned bot jerry-rigged from spare parts. “The way you sold this gig to me, I’d thought I’d wind up on the shores of Celestrasia, oiling my joints with some babe. Instead, I’ll be floating toward that rock there, crunching breccia and nothing else.”
“Oh, quit moaning,” said Biff Chesthair. “I’m maneuvering this bucket so close it’ll only be a leap and a step. Else, they’re gonna catch us and switch out your parts. Turn you into something you’re gonna regret. We both know why.”
“How can I not? My repeat circuit keeps showing Chrome and Pewter pissed because I mistook them for Dead Betas. What bot rests? Only boosted their Slether so I can sell it to buy more appendage junk. Hey, they’d do the same to me! And yes, I’m an idiot ’cause I didn’t think they’d have the sense to bury a tracker inside the Slether pack. So, I’m taking it…there,” Rathwalston said, pointing out the porthole to a grim, scarlets-shadowed planet.
“Look, R,” said Thurston Chiseljaw as he strapped a hefty transport box to the back of the unwilling robot. “We got to get rid of that Slether,” he said, referring to the blitz-quick addictive drug, known to bring down bots, babies and everything in between. “We can’t have both the cops and bots chasing us. Already they’re on to us. I’d do it myself if you didn’t play hide-and-seek with my helmet.”
“You lost it in that poker game last night. Now I’m wearing it,” he said, glancing at the lower part of his mechanical torso.
“Yeah, it’s your ass,” said Thurston, “and there’s no way I’m putting that back on my head.”
Meanwhile, Biff struggled with the primitive controls on their stolen ship, a hacked-together collection of gear shifting rods, a metal pegboard box passing as a control panel and a window with a target drawn on it. A few dials sporting unrecognizable symbols proved to be a complete waste of time, signifying nothing useful, to him anyway. He might as well fly blind. After much jiggering, he figured out the correct joystick to turn it towards the unnamed planet only meters away.
“If either of you loose screws wants to pay attention, we’re here. We got an hour, tops. Time to go,” said Biff to Rathwalson.
“I’m already gone. Catch you in five,” Rathwalson said as he slipped through the portal.
Biff and Thurston watched him stream towards the planet’s surface, leaving a faint trail of propulsion fuel in his wake.
An hour passed by. “Come in, Rathwalson. Come in,” Thurston hailed through the barely-functioning radio. “Come in, now, can’t hear you. Where you at?”
Nothing but a sizzle crack of dead air.
“Don’t like this,” said Biff. “Either he’s gone off someplace, or they’ve found us. I’m going down there.”
“I’ll keep watch. Not that we’re a tempting target or anything, but even if Pewter and Chrome are in a good mood, they’ll pick us off just for laughs. I mean, look at this ship,” he said, slapping the metal pegboard box that held the control panel.
Biff tugged on his spacesuit as Thurston readied the propulsion kit. “There’s not much fuel here. Might not be enough to bring back the bot anyway.”
Moments later, he disappeared into the dark abyss, floating towards his destiny.
Nothing works like it’s supposed to, thought Biff as he scrambled along the rough surface of the unnamed planet. The tracker’s sending me here, but I’m not picking up signs.
Without warning, the sky erased it stars, replaced by a great gust of wind, then darkness. After a few foggy minutes, he regained his senses and glanced at his biometer. Oxygen…that’s good. He slipped off his helmet and breathed fresh air. A clink, followed by a ka-terrk, ka-terrk, ga-wheee sound caught his attention.
No…
Leaving his helmet, he raced towards the noise. There stood Pewter and Chrome, disassembling a sizable assembly of bots. Among them was Rathwalson, his various pieces carefully arranged in categories: appendages, intelligence, camera, receptor, and others. That packet of Slether joined others in a bin.
“What took you so long?” said Pewter, as he turned toward Biff, pulling the head off of another bot while Chrome dissected its innards.
“That wasn’t our agreement. You know all the trouble I went through to get this stuff?” said Biff.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Pewter. “You’ve pirated more Slether than anyone this side of the sector. Our profits have vanished.”
“Time to go,” said Chrome, as he rose up from the ground.
“But…but…” Biff whimpered, until he felt the cold metal finger touch his cheeks.
Chrome unscrewed the cap that once served as Biff’s head, placed it on a shelf, and dug within his interior, scooping out the piles of packets of Slether that Biff held captive for far too long. It was time for him to go.
Since I have nothing else to write about, I’d thought I’d come up with a flash sci-fi story written especially for you! Oh, don’t worry, it’s complete with illustrations, so if you don’t like my prose, you have pictures to stare at!
Ready? Here we go…
Pay Day
“You little weenie! I’m gonna blast the f—— s— out of your freakin’ ass,” Trish Walker muttered. Not one to mess around with unscheduled attacks, she wrapped her fingers around the zapper.
Alkazoid taunted, “You couldn’t hit the side of chettle dock if it sat on your face. Why dontcha show some sense and give up like your pal, there?”
“Jim? What’s he got to do with anything? He’s all wheezed out after sucking down that bottle of potato water he stuffed in his pack. Fell out of the lander and bashed his helmet. Idiot.”
“What, so you’re picking up his mess? What are you, the cleaning lady?” sneered Alkazoid.
“Yeah, and I’m gonna finish the job right…now,” Trish said, giving the zapper an extra hard squeeze as she let loose. Crackling streams of electrodes sizzled Alkazoid smack in the center of his eye.
Trish glanced at her colleague, Jim. A worthless sot, half the payload of their space cruiser hid his devil juice. Tossed out anything his drunken brain considered disposable, including food, munitions and air caches. Of course, she discovered this far too long into their misguided journey. They’d gotten word a wormhole existed only 37.65° left of Kronos. Jim steered the ship that many degrees to the right. Out of fuel and resources, they wound up on some hunk of rock with one insane piece of teal-shaded talking flesh.
“With what?” Trish yelled, continuing to lay on her zapper. “Buttons or good looks?”
“Ohhhh…god…my…head…” groaned Jim, entirely unaware of the jam Trish sought to end.
“Shut up!” Trish yelled, thrusting him downward with her unoccupied hand. She gave him a good, hard thunk on his helmet, hoping it inflicted even more pain.
“Aaaay…gimme a break…” Jim uttered as he passed out.
“No…you’ll pay with this,” Alkazoid said.
The last thing Trish saw was the reedy smile of his snaky lips as he tossed a red octagon towards her. Then…nothing…
She figured a couple of hours passed, maybe more. Her eyes fluttered open to an inexplicable vision of insane red madness. She and Jim were now babies, and instead of him sucking vodka out of a straw, he seemed to be ingesting it from the homelike teat of a maniacal machine. Its faint alcoholic odor drifted under her nose. He seemed utterly contented, laying on his back on the shelf lap of this metal mama. Its tentacles massaged Jim in a rather intimate fashion. Nearby, a kid played with what seemed to be a miniature version of their space cruiser. He chanted, in a sing-song manner, a little something about naughty people getting punished, becoming doomed and answering to karma’s deep, lingering force.
“Say…wait a minute,” she said aloud. She glanced down and around. “Something’s not right here. Am I…is Jim…are we…babies?” Her feet dangled in air, her body held captive by a mesh sling as her arms stuck out from its sides. Nearby, a mechanical gizmo resembling a machine with an arm, lay on the ground.
“Mmmmm,” said Jim, happily slurping on his tubular teat.
“What’re you so happy about? We’re prisoners in metallic nursery,” said Trish.
“No,” said Jim. “We’re living in my fantasy. You see, when I saw that red thing come crashing in my direction, I remember thinking about a dream I had back on home base. When I woke up, I figured that dream might’ve been running through my sleep time again. But you know what? It’s real. We’re here. And if I remember correctly, that thing you were zapping at said something just before you passed out.”
“Me? You were already history,” Trish said.
“No…that teal thing-man gave up a few more words. Said better race towards your dreams – whoever gets there first wins. So I guess I won. Pretty sweet, huh? I can go on like this,” he said, sighing with pleasure.
Trish pressed her lips in anger. That bastard wasn’t going to win. It was then she became aware of a hard cylinder in her grip. She raised her hand and read the tiny inscription on its side: to go out, pull here.
“Whatcha doin’?” asked Jim, noticing Trish pulling on an object with her teeth.
“Game over,” Trish said, and spit out the pin into the grass.
Susan Crawford, Gretchen Weerheim and a Photobombing Alien
Pine Bush, NY Alien Festival is a local institution celebrating that town’s rather long legacy as the Hudson Valley’s premier UFO visitation site. And while it might not compare with, let’s say, ComicCon, it’s a small, charming, earnest festival that welcomes aliens and their friends from all over the universe. Sure, you have a crowd of abductees retelling their stories of horror aboard a ship of untraceable origin. Local authors hawk fiction and nonfiction stories of the weird and strange. And if you’re hungry, there’s always fried dough to munch on.
My sister Gwen and our friends Susan and Kate (actually, they’re sisters too) gathered together to check out the festival. Having never actually attended, none of us knew what to expect, which was a good thing. Yeah, sure, alien stereotypes abound.
Porch Aliens
Oh, so what. Who cares? The whole town’s having a great time, a silly laugh and an excuse to dress up. What’s wrong with that?
If things got too much, aliens can always esape…or escape…to a special hideaway created just for them.
To break of the monotony of green, we’ve got a little Star Trek thrown in. As Gwen and I wandered around, we came upon these two from the local chapter of the Star Trek Fan Club from Poughkeepsie, NY. These two reps from the club were about as enthusiastic as can be, offering me a chance to snuggle the tribble, offer me a piece of Double Bubble, and graciously giving me a copy of their newsletter. They’re open to new members and have MeetUps often. Visit their website for more details, if you’re interested.
Of course, any festival has great souvenirs of all kinds. Everyone seemed to be selling T-shirts and although I really thought they were cool, $20.00 is a bit steep. Thomas Quackenbush, a local sci-fi author, sold his books.
And what kind of festival is it if there isn’t some kind of ear-splitting music echoing down the streets? This particular band, First Round, actually was quite good. They played a good selection of covers extremely well. I liked them. Down the other end of the street, however, was a high school band with a horribly off-key wailer, accompanied by kids playing their instruments without any discernible rhythm.
I’m saving the best for last – the parade. The Parade.
Sure, it’s tiny and if you blink, it’s over. But man, those streets jam up and everyone cheers ’em on!
As you can see by the above pictures, the parade was well attended.
Alas, the day came too quickly to a close, so we ran for the car, seven blocks away, and drove off before everyone else thought about leaving. On our way home, as we got diverted down a road none of us ever saw because of an accident, we recounted our adventure on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Already we’ve made plans for next year.
Oh, and it’s been decided: we’re going as Coneheads.
What mother doesn’t enjoy a wonderful surprise on Mother’s Day? And with today’s fluid definition of genders, mothers come in all shapes and sizes. So here’s my brief tribute to what motherhood might mean, in modernspeak.
While our friend Captain James T. Kirk certainly wasn’t what I’d consider a motherly figure, he sure knew his way around reproduction, given the amount of female alien types he seemed to pick up and hit on. So it’s completely fitting that he’s burdened with a whole piles of lovable, adorable tribbles, who seemed to have taken a real shine to him. They kind of popped up all over the place in the space ship, giving rabbits a run for the money. Since Kirk was in charge of the ship, he fostered an environment for motherhood, since these things were determined to have been born pregnant.
How about Lou Gosset, Jr. playing a reptilian Jeriba, of the Drac people, an asexual race. Jerboa gave birth and then died, leaving an alien (to Jeriba, at least) Willis Davidge (a.k.a Dennis Quaid) to raise him. It’s not the best way to parent a child, but that’s why Dennis/Willis showed up, so at least the kid had a role model of sorts.
Here’s the completely parent-less delivery method called Body Snatching. It’s important to remember that these aren’t zombies, or the undead, or whatever. These life forms are a likeness, a substation, a stand in, much like margarine stands in for butter on occasion. Sure, it tastes all right, but it’s not butter, but it does what it’s supposed to do, so what difference does it make? And while anyone who’s fallen victim to the body snatchers can’t distinguish the difference between their original selves and the new-and-improved version, why should you, as a child, complain? After all, these new bodies just might believe all those half-baked lies you deliver when you want to stay out with your friends way past your bedtime on a Saturday night?
So folks, I surely hope you treated your moms right, bought flowers, dinner, cards, called, paid tribute, genuflected, thanked from the bottom of your heart and pledged to be the perfect child from today on forward. One day, Mom won’t be around to tell you what to do, and believe me, as one who knows, you’ll miss her like you can’t image.
Here’s to Mom…in whatever shape or form, on Mother’s Day.
Often small towns have big reputations, and Pine Bush, NY is no exception. It’s been argued that it’s the UFO capital of the United States (sorry, Roswell!), New York, Hudson Valley and the East Coast of the United States, to name a few locations. All sorts of mysterious and unexplained sitings have occurred here often, as detailed in this video from 2008:
So what’s a small town to do? Run? Hide? Deny it?
Of course not! People of Pine Bush are a celebratory folk, enjoying and capitalizing on their claim to fame. And to that end, each year it hosts its annual UFO Fair, always held in the spring. Its citizen rejoice in this opportunity to share with this world its particular attraction for tourists from other worlds.
Though activity of some sort always seems to be present in Pine Bush, the 1980s and 1990s turned out to be a particularly active time. Those were the years of the “Westchester Boomerang,” a UFO seen with great regularity across the Hudson River in Westchester County, but also in Pine Bush, too. Red mists rose from fields. Strange lights slinked, darted, zipped and hovered through woods, marshes and farmers’ fields.
Now, there’s lots of naysayers who’ll state that UFOs in the area are merely mistaken aircraft flying over from nearby Stewart Airport/AFB, West Point, or planes approaching from others such as Newark Liberty or LaGuardia. Talk to the locals, though, and they’ll tell you otherwise. They know what airplanes look like. Those unidentified crafts flying above their heads aren’t the result of an active imagination after a few too many beers. Not everything in this world can be explained easily, if at all.
As the saying goes: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Pine Bush has been welcoming its offworld friends for many years, and welcomes you too. Come, meet the locals, shop in their stores, eat at the Cup and Saucer Diner, and support this wonderful festival filled with good times, happy memories, games, informal talks, entertainment AND a parade!
I’ve been glancing through the headlines, as most of you do, I’m sure, to not only figure out what’s going on in this world but perhaps troll up some fodder for fiction. When I’m stuck or need a break, I put down the project at hand, pick this up and scan headlines. Not blogs or other social media, but that quaint little collection of light grey pages that lands at the end of a driveway or plops on a porch.
Yep. A newspaper.
I subscribe to two local papers, have several digital subscriptions and read all sorts of magazines, both online and print. Listen to a whole bunch of different podcasts. From these sources, a virtual (literally) treasure trove of really neat stuff’s just waiting to be picked and eaten, occasionally alive. Though you might already know the stories and the sources, it’s worth consideration for sci-fi stories.
Random inspiration: El Nino (“the child” – male), a slumbering pre-conquistedor kid, awakes from his long-forgotten grave when San Diego sewer workers open up a bit of the freeway to repair a broken water main. See, this kid’s the ancient victim of a sacred ritual wherein young innocents’ lives were sacrificed to The Holy One in order to bring warmth and water for crops to grow. Trouble is, after one long, lingering look at his hot wet-nurse, this youngster planned to grow to adulthood. Kid’s last thoughts, right before his neck slicing, conjured up a curse, promising a time when his bones are discovered, he’ll unleash his vengeance and both fry and flood California. So when our unsuspecting sewer workers jackhammer and pickax the asphalt on a typical July morning, the steam rising from the broken pipe isn’t evidence of a pipe failure, it’s EL NINO manifesting a physical form so he can wreaked havoc with the weather…and unite with the one woman who’d give him what he needed.
Random inspiration: Though they might appear to be missing Japanese climbers, they are, in fact, only the remains of higher ascended beings who shed their disguises after studying the lives of those on Earth. Meeting at the foot of the Matterhorn glacier, their intergalactic stellercaster ship gracefully landed when said mountain, enveloped in dense fog, provided a safe and mysterious curtain for rescue. Once aboard, duo relates horrific story of nuclear war, cold war, resource depletion and disintegrating moral values, especially those having to do with free love. Ignoring all of the former and attentive to only the latter observation, lonely shipmates ditch the spacecraft to come ashore on this wild planet to learn a few firsthand lessons of their own.
So you see? It’s not much of a leap from reality to sci-fi. All that’s needed is a quick read between the lines and a spin on the details. After all, it’s what politicians do every day. Why not you?
Writing is hard, let’s face it. Inspiration is short, patience nonexistent. And there you are, sitting in front of your computer, in absolute agony, trying to conjure up an image of a beast that’s the favorite companion of the King of Darcoia, that planet just to the left of Asysamia, right out there in the Booidad Triad. He’s been looking for a pet since his wife left him and his kids pretty much blew him off. What more can a person need than unconditional love from a favored snuggleupicus? Or your favorite little mumuchka?
On Huffington Post this week, an article regarding an adorable little creature appeared. She seemed fresh from another planet, ready and willing to charm anyone with her cute face and eyes like those of the Greys/Grays. Was she the product of an experiment, perhaps some intergalactic cross-breeding? Sure seems it, eh? This is exactly the sort of creature you’d see in a parody of space films OR a serious new race of aliens bearing the dual purpose of charming the natives to deceive them cruelly.
Oh yes, another creature that defies explanation – the tardigrade. It’s actually microscopic, but from the looks of it, a tardigrade most certainly bears the features of an alien. It’s so puffy and wrinkly, yet it’s got that cog-like snout – does it adjust the puff/wrinkle setting somehow?
The Blobfish almost reminds me of the cartoon character Ziggy, drawn by Tom Wilson. Got to admit, there’s a VERY strong resemblance. However, before you draw conclusions, what you see is the result of bringing a deep water fish up to the surface, where the pressure is much different. Here’s an artist’s drawing of what a blobfish really looks like deep below the ocean’s surface:
Blobfish hold the distinction of being internet celebrities and rate many YouTube shorts. Here’s a good one that offers not only a little informational tidbit but music inspired by it:
Science calls this Grimpoteuthis, but it’s more popularly known as the Dumbo Octopus. I say it’s one of those creatures where you give it a squeeze and its little snout pops out. Or, one plops it on top of one’s cubicle wall and invites people to ask silly questions about it. They’re actually very graceful swimmers and resemble a sort-of elephant when full grown; the above is a baby.
I heard he had gone into the hospital, but who’d ever think that Spock would die? That’s as unfathomable as space and time itself!
Spock…dead?
People of a certain age, such as myself, count their youthful years against the number of Star Trek episodes they identify with. I was quite young when they originally aired, but I remember seeing them. Later, in the 1970s, Mom always turned the show on after dinner. And there he was, Spock, spouting his quiet but firm logic against the perpetually angered and impulsive Kirk. He had a better grip on things, from his unique perspective. Half human, half Vulcan, he read into Earthly beings with insight, yet allowed his mature, tamer side to pump out the decisions that allowed the Enterprise to stay afloat in space.
So why wasn’t he the captain, you ask?
No swagger value, I’m afraid. A quiet, contemplative fellow, Spock chose to pursue feats of the brain instead of the brawn. And that’s fine, really. There’s too many jocks out there, and every braniac, nerd, geek and other reject embraced Spock with a passion, because it gave them a great model to follow. No, you don’t have to be a football player or a cheerleader – the universe needs thinkers, too!
In middle and high school, the same geeky types that were into Star Trek were also into such shows as Dr. Who and Space: 1999. Even Monte Python’s Flying Circus. We were the group that got all the strangeness because we didn’t have to worry about what people thought of us – they already thought we were weird. Our imaginations set us free, launching us into the stratosphere with odd concepts convincingly plausible. I got a bit stuck on wondering just exactly where in the universe the Enterprise was located, or headed. How come they never ran out of gas? Or water? Or food? Where did they get their uniforms from? Who did the laundry? How did they maintain personal hygiene? I figured a ship that size had to have an awfully large cargo bay. Maybe they did purloin provisions from populated planets.
My college friend Linda probably had some insight into these issues. She devoted her life (at that point, anyway) to two things: music and Star Trek. She memorized each episode, completely down to the credits. She possessed an actual female uniform and wore it when the occasion demanded it. Without hesitation she could name any tiny bit of trivia one threw at her, often showing down many a Star Trekscholar – which she proudly was – often at the price of a beer.
Still, this iconic sci-fi show would be nothing without its iconic star. Spock beckoned us to live long and prosper, which he surely did. He leaves us to enjoy the episodes which made him famous and live long in our hearts forever.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 