I found Wally!

Coincidence time?

Okay, so I went looking for my passport today - missing for a decade, and long-expired, but missing nonetheless, and I need to hand it back to get a new one issued - and I searched and searched, in all the same places and I found... Wally! (AKA "Waldo" in the USA, of "Where's Waldo" puzzle book fame. Don't ask me why he's Wally Down Under; the evil Wally is still Odlaw, ie. "Waldo" spelled backwards).

Wally's the perpetual world traveller - I'll bet he's never lost his passport - and it seemed rather ironic to me that I could find Wally in the garage and not the elusive passport. Again. This has been going on, this search, for almost ten years. Admit defeat? Never! How weird was it that, in the same box, was my 1970-vintage autographed fan card of Aussie celebrity Skeeter the Paperboy (the late James Kemsley, of "Skeeter's Cartoon Corner" and a former "Ginger Meggs" cartoonist)? And here were Skeeter and Wally with matching shirts!

Well, after a short break for a photo shoot with Skeeter and Wally, I went back to the garage. Another hour or so of rummaging, with the torch batteries faltering... I found my passport. The very last box in the furthest corner! Of course. Murphy's Law. Or Odlaw's Law?

Easter foolery

The school was visited by the Easter Bunny today, coincidentally on April Fools' Day.

Meanwhile, Central Station's restored paybus has again been decorated for the season. A friend posted a pic yesterday before one of its ears went floppy:



Strangely enough, my friend, Jeff Campbell (below left), posted two Easter pics to his Facebook page yesterday: himself having an Easter ear malfunction, and the original version (below right) of what the Easter paybus was supposed to look like. Looks like the paybus went out in sympathy by the time I wandered past:



Archival pics:

Lifting the roof from the sex cauldron

96 King's Cross

This 1972, "lookalike", light porn cheapie paperback novel attempts to cash in on the popularity of prime time Australian television soap opera, "Number 96". It turned up in the mail by a reader of my blog entries and website dedicated to "Number 96", for which I'm grateful - for completist reasons only, of course. The novel, "96 King's Cross" by one Ricki Francis, was published by Scripts Publications of North Sydney in 1972; described as the "risque arm" of publishing company Horwitz. Francis also supposedly novelized the raunchy Aussie movie "Alvin Rides Again", although she wasn't credited.

Some characters seem loosely based on "Number 96" characters: Emma Rawlins, like Vera Collins, is a high class prostitute. And there's the obligatory homosexual couple, Jay and Lee, who fill the same controversial niche as Don and Bruce. I love how this book - and all eight of the official Arkon "Number 96" novelizations, in fact - featured pink spines, perhaps attempting to emulate Mills & Boon romance novels.

Strangely enough, Horwitz had another imprint, Stag Publishing Company, that released an original novel called "Number 96" in 1976, which was based on the TV show! (That one was supposedly penned by Carl Ruhen, who later did the early "Young Doctors", "Sons and Daughters" and "Neighbours" novelisations, although his name doesn't get credited in the "Number 96" book itself. For another coincidence, Carl Ruhen's pseudonym, Peter Brand, shared a collection with Ricki Francis; his "Devil's Outriders" was printed in the same volume as Ricki Francis' 1972 novel "Bikie Vengeance", in the 1977 reprint for Scripts.)

A mob in a flash

Flash mobbers at Central, Australia Day 2009

My friend Jonathan participated in the Central Flash Mob event today, and provided a blog entry about it. Well done, Jonathan! It would have been fun to be there. (That's not Jonathan in the above pic, of course. The Flash Mob organisers have started uploading photos, with more located on their Facebook page.)



Over our third annual Australia Day dinner tonight at Baia San Marco, my Star Trek Meetup group discussed the concept of flash mobs and, to my surprise, I discovered that our colleague, Adam, had co-organised the first such Sydney event in 2008! Small (stationary) world! Once again, the power of Facebook.


Motionless, but only because they're watching fireworks.

"Good afternoon, good evening and good night"

I have often blogged about the phenomenon of eerier coincidences, but today I was convinced that, for the last two days, I've been squarely trapped in "The Truman Show".

Not only is Sydney's CBD, and many suburbs, almost littered with giant posters of a leering Jim Carrey (promoting his new movie "The Yes Man"), but I'm now convinced I'm being followed by a small Truman-esque group of professional actors and extras - or perhaps spies and Internet stalkers?

Yesterday, my housemate and I had some time to kill while waiting for his car to be returned from its regular wheel alignment. We had intended to travel into the city by train but, when we arrived at the station, the next fast country service to Central wasn't for another 48 minutes. We realised that, with travelling time in both directions, our window of opportunity for, umm, window shopping (not to mention the important stuff, like collecting two weeks' worth of my new comics, books and magazines) would be minimal, and we went to Blacktown instead.

On our train was a rather portly, visually-impaired man in his early 40s. He had long dreadlocks - and a guide dog (a typically diligent and contented labrador). Now, I did think at the time that the guy's hairstyle was distinctive. It's certainly not a common style to see on anyone over the age of about 30 in Penrith, but this guy didn't fit the mould for any number of reasons. Vive la difference, and IDIC*, and all that.

However, we passed this guy several times in the Westfield shopping centre at Blacktown, again when he was eating lunch in a restaurant and, sure enough, later that afternoon, he was on our train back home again.

But today: I went into the CBD for my second attempt to collect my standing order of comics, etc, from Kings Comics. Firstly, I had exactly 48 minutes to wait for the train. Spooky enough. When I arrived at Central station, who was coming up the ramp, presumably to catch a train? The guy with the dreadlocks and the guide dog!

Surrounded by Jim Carrey posters at every turn, I ended up passing two other people, in separate sidewalk cafes, who'd been on my train that morning. With comics in hand, I quickly hurried back to the station, where the next train wasn't due for... 48 minutes.

I think I'm going to start checking the sky over Penrith for signs of a secret entrance.

* IDIC - "Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations" - Spock of Vulcan, "Star Trek".

Sweet coincidence

My site meter tells me that a recent visitor to my blog had typed into Google "Ian McLean cupcakes" and I was a bit bewildered as to how they knew I'd mentioned them a few times, especially last Midwinter Christmas, even if only briefly, but I followed the Google link and it led to this page... of posters for sale!

They weren't painted by me, no, but they do look delicious. Mmmmm, cupcakes...

Speaking of junk food - gosh I'm so hungry now -

Sunday's magic number: 92.6. No cupcakes for me, he says, eating his fifth Lemon Crisp bikkie. (What? I'm celebrating my big toe's return to full health. Any excuse.)

Bloodstains in the dark

The fourth season of JJ Abrams' "Lost" returned to Australian television this week, and I watched back the first episode on my DVD recorder this morning. I'd quite forgotten some of the ongoing threads over the show's hiatus but, in the opening moments, the director, editor and writers quickly got me up to speed.

Knowing that JJ Abrams is currently working on the new Star Trek film, it was exciting to see, anew, how well "Lost" is put together. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time catching up - and I still have no idea what's going to happen next.

My only eyebrow-raising moments: the camp of survivors split up into two search parties, both groups following what they believed to be a legitimate path of bloodstains.

At night time? By the light of flaming torches?

Mmmm. Okay.

Speaking of mysterious bloodstains in the dark: I managed to create my own wayward trail of blood spots last night, after cutting my finger with the newish kitchen scissors. I was harvesting what might turn out to be my last two gardenia blooms for the season. What a time to discover that the last dregs of Dettol antiseptic was used for whatever was the last local medical emergency...

And speaking of mysteries in the dark: last night, my house security system was insisting I had a window open. The main wooden doors were fine; the code was claiming it was a window. Or a glass door. I ran around the house, checking every window and glass door. The control panel was still insisting a window was open.

Then, Jack started barking at the front wooden door. I opened it, but he was still barking. Not out into the street, but at the door! I closed the door again and I realised the infamous ghostly fishy smell was back! Now, Jack was freaking out, and ran off to bed.

As the smell slowly dissipated, I glanced at the security control panel again. The ghost was gone, and lo! - the control panel had reset itself! No windows were open.

Next stop, "The Twilight Zone".

Number 96 and the Demidenko connection

Well, what a surprise! Viewers of tonight's Where Are They Now probably guessed that the two (extra) special guests on the Number 96 reunion special would be iconic members of the cast, but I was anticipating Joe Hasham (as homosexual law student, Don Finlayson) and Abigail (as the vivacious but virginal Bev Houghton).

Now, I did know that the researchers at Network 7 really wanted Abigail on the show, and were having trouble tracking her down last year; she was thought to be in Europe, and even her agent had not heard from her in ages. Joe wasn't a difficulty; he'd already been a surprise guest for John Orcsik in the old Peter Luck version of Where Are They Now (1997).

It was a thrill to learn that Chard Hayward (as Don's campy lover, Dudley Butterfield) had agreed to return to Australia for Where Are They Now, to catch up with his former cast mates after 30 years. About ten years ago, the cast had tried to involve Chard with a literary project they were working on, but he preferred to stay focused on his new life as a director/actor in the USA. (Maybe you noticed his credit on early episodes of "Lost", on which he consulted about the Australian aspects of the scripts?)

Tonight's show can be summarised thusly:
WHERE ARE THEY NOW. (8/7/2007)
Presented by Melissa Doyle and David Koche. Featured Jeff Kevin (Arnold Feather), Sheila Kennelly (Norma Whittaker), Elaine Lee (Vera Collins Sutton), James Elliott (Alf Sutcliffe), Elisabeth Kirkby (Lucy Sutcliffe), Frances Hargreaves (Marilyn MacDonald), Chantal Contouri (as the pantyhose strangler herself: Tracey Wilson), and surprise guests, Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson) and Chard Hayward (Dudley Butterfield).

From the Archives: Ian McLean meets the Pantyhose Strangler!

But for me, the biggest surprise tonight happened after the Number 96 segment: the appearance of controversial author, Helen Demidenko (aka Helen Darville, now aka Helen Dale), of The Hand That Signed the Paper infamy! What an amazing personal coincidence! You don't see a connection? Please allow me to explain:

Way back in 1995, I received the wonderful news that publishing company Allen & Unwin was considering offering me a contract for the book I'd proposed (and had half-finished): my social history on Number 96. My agent, Selwa Anthony, and I had just had lunch with the Allen & Unwin editor, and it all seemed extremely positive.

Arriving home, I immediately rang four people who'd been of significant assistance in getting my proposal out into the world of publishing: Nancy Cash, widow of Don Cash, from the team who originally produced Number 96; David Sale, the creator of the show, who'd been so supportive and generous of his time; and Valerie Parv and Natalie Jane Prior, two longtime friends who'd already become successful, published authors.

After his encouraging words of hopeful congratulation for the safe arrival of my first contract, David Sale had made some very witty jokes about Allen & Unwin's then-current debacle to do with Helen Demidenko, and the accusations of misrepresentation and plagiarism that were dogging her. It had been the only news event being talked about that whole week. David suggested I could impress Allen & Unwin by changing my name - to Ian Demidenko, or perhaps Ian Sale? - and gain some extra notoriety for my book.<

We'd fallen about hysterically but then I attempted to convey these same jokes to my pal Natalie, along with my news. Natalie was naturally thrilled for me having had what seemed to be such a successful meeting with my editor, and that we were about to share publishers, since Allen & Unwin had already published several of Natalie's children's books (including The Paw). Strangely, though, Natalie seemed rather cool towards the jokes at Ms Demidenko/Darville's expense. Of course, I had no way of knowing that said Helen D. had been hiding out at Natalie's house all week, in secret, and on the run from the media frenzy Helen had managed to create! (A few days later, a Sydney newspaper's poster outside the newsagents screamed, "FRIEND TELLS OF DARVILLE'S LIES!")

Alas, my book on Number 96 ended up not happening - the Allen & Unwin marketing people were rightly concerned there was no longer a big enough demographic wanting to buy a book about Number 96- sigh! - but my big day did end up in a book after all: The Demidenko Diary by Natalie Jane Prior, in which Natalie told the world of her bizarre association with the person who perpetrated one of Australia's most famous cases of literary fraud.

A quote from page 139, which takes place after another frantic day of Natalie fielding phone calls and complications about Helen and the employees at Allen & Unwin: "After all this I was a wreck. I had to take a few other calls, including one from a friend to say that his first book looked likely to be published by - you guessed it - Allen & Unwin". (Prior, Reed Books: 1996.)

Sometimes coincidence and serendipity create a synergy that really freaks me out. And here I was yesterday, saying I felt a bit left out of the reunion after helping them find people. (Especially after hearing that my old friend Andrew Mercado had been in the studio for the taping...) Thanks Network 7 for a fun show tonight, and for one more very bizarre coincidence!

By the way, for people searching out Chantal Contouri's Adelaide restaurant, it would seem to be the Original Barbecue Inn

.

Peter and the Wolf and The Weird Coincidence

Well, it's happened again. Blog about a series of coincidences often enough, and surely there'll be more coincidences. (And don't call me Shirley.)

A week ago, one set of metal shelves, from a forgotten corner of the school library, collapsed, spilling their contents of bulky, excess, to-be-deleted teacher reference materials all over the floor! I immediately put in a request for our general assistant to re-bolt the shelving to the wall, and they were repaired with great efficiency. However, the piles of scattered resources had to wait a few days for my undivided attention.

On Thursday, my school has a troupe of puppeteers visiting, to perform Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" for the students. Last Friday, one of the teachers said she'd scoured her own book collection, wanting to find a text version of the classic story. (She'd been playing numerous variations on the spoken-word-with-musical-accompaniment version.) On Monday morning, a different teacher mentioned that she wanted a text version, too. I typed "Peter and the Wolf" into OASIS Enquiry, but... "Computer says 'No'!"

Now, my last time in a school library was a decade ago, but I often find myself remembering the collection of my last school library. There, we had a set of about a dozen picture books based on famous musical works: "Coppelia", "Swan Lake", "The Carnival of the Animals", "Peter and the Wolf" and many others. Published in the early 70s, the internal artwork was of a Japanese inspiration, often using collage. In fact, when I mentioned this series to my current colleagues, they were sure that this library used to have them, too.

A search of classroom collections uncovered first one, then three more, books in the series. They'd been deleted, and moved out of the library years ago, due to lack of their circulation in the system but, today, as I finally got to those unwanted piles on the library floor, I found nine more books - including the elusive "Peter and the Wolf"!

You know, if that shelving hadn't collapsed on cue, I would not have gotten to that dusty, to-be-deleted shelf until the visiting puppeteers were a very distant memory.

And again: doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo...

"You unlock this door..."

... with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both style and substance of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into 'The Twilight Zone'." (R. Serling)

Doo doo, doo doo. Doo doo, doo doo... The Twilight Zone: I've been there, you know. And here's the story I promised you way back when I started this blog. I hope I can do it justice...

In 1981, I was still living with my parents on Stoney Creek Road at Kingsgrove, and had started doing local casual teaching work, awaiting a study trip to Ireland (intending to do a Montessori course that I never got around to, mainly because I would have been staying with Irish nuns in Dublin - and the IRA had taken to bombing Irish nuns at the time). Frustratingly, although we lived directly opposite an infants school, I was only ever offered one day’s work there.

One morning, I was heading off down nearby Kingsgrove Road to catch a train. As I passed the bus stop opposite Kingsgrove High School, I noticed an ancient Globite suitcase, secured by leather straps, apparently abandoned on the nature strip.

About a block further along, a dusty, little man suddenly popped up, seemingly out of nowhere. He must have been in his late 80s, maybe early 90s. He asked me, “How do I get to Kingsgrove High School?”

It took me a moment to comprehend what he was asking. The school in question was almost within spitting distance, and the tiny man had such an intense expression. He wore horn-rimmed glasses that had thick “lenses like Coke bottles” — literally as thick as the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle — and coated with a thick layer of dust. I was amazed that he could see anything out of them. He was also wearing a very old-fashioned black suit, and carrying a wooden walking stick. I tried to point out the school, but then he wanted to know if he could catch a bus there. Again, I tried to point out the nearby location of the school he asked about, but I was feeling rather flummoxed. It didn’t help that he looked rather like an elderly version of Burgess Meredith in the iconic Twilight Zone episode, Time Enough at Last, in which a book fanatic, Henry Bemis, is the last man left in civilisation when an H-Bomb destroys everyone else. Trapped in a public library full of books, he celebrates having “time enough at last” to read them all, undisturbed — but then he breaks his glasses.

Did the little dusty man mean that he wanted to try to catch a bus to the school, in which case that wouldn't be necessary, or did he have to catch a bus from the bus stop at the school?

“I live at the school…” I thought he said. (He lives at the school? Or did he say “near the school”?)

Now running late for my train, I regrettably had to fob him off with more hand gestures towards the school and the bus stop. And I was finally on my way, feeling a little guilty at abandoning him, but also more than a little glad to be out of his eerie presence.

That night, my spine still felt rather chilled by my strange encounter. Over dinner, I had tried to describe my chance meeting with the dusty-little-old-man-with-dusty-Coke-bottle-glasses. Neither my parents nor my brothers seemed to understand just how creepy the scene had been. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that they didn't believe my preposterous story.

Everyone had gone to bed by 10.00 pm, or thereabouts, but I was fiddling with some project or other - as per usual - and it got to be about 11.45pm, when I heard the weirdest twanging noise out in the front yard.

“Twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, twang…”

I'd just convinced myself I was hearing things when the noise started up again.

“Twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, twang…”

Finally, I opened the front door and stepped out onto the front balcony and peered into the darkness. And there he was... (Cue The Twilight Zone theme music. Again.)

The little-old-man-with-dusty-Coke-bottle-glasses was banging on the metal balcony railing with his walking stick. He was holding a battered, old Globite suitcase, tied up with leather straps.

He asked me, “How can I get to the high school? Do I need to catch a bus to get there?”

Deja vu?

Again, it took me a moment or more to comprehend exactly what he was asking me. Once again, Kingsgrove High School was almost within spitting distance, but in the opposite direction than it was from the location of our prior conversation. (Had this eerie little man been following me all day? How come he didn't pop up again until everyone else - my witnesses - had gone to bed? Would anyone believe me? Did people actually get out of The Twilight Zone alive?)

So did the little old man mean that he wanted to try to catch a bus to the school - in which case, once again, that wouldn't be necessary - or did he have to catch his bus from the bus stop outside the school? At 11.45pm?

“I live at the school…” I thought he said again, or did he say near the school?

It's hard to recall exactly what happened next. I think I pointed in the direction of the high school and ran inside. And went to bed. And tried to sleep.

Needless to say, no one believed me the next morning, although I was glad that the little stranger had vanished without a trace. If that Globite suitcase had been sitting on the verandah, I may have screamed.

Looking back on those two encounters over the next few days, I eventually worked out that, wherever the man had been going that morning (Rockdale was the end of the route), he must have been returning from there to the same bus stop that evening, but the driver had mistakenly let him off too early: at the infants school (ie. opposite our house), instead of at the high school a block further down Stoney Creek Road.

An afterword:

Several years later, my Dad happened to mention a bizarre little anecdote he'd heard about the eccentric, very elderly father of a golfing mate... who'd lived all alone, opposite Kingsgrove High School, until he was well into his 90s — and I realised I'd finally solved at least enough of the mystery to know that Rod Serling wasn't going to pop up some day and drag me off to… The Twilight Zone.

Doo doo, doo doo. Doo doo, doo doo...

The Coincidence Files

Well, what a coincidence! Only this morning, I posted that weird coincidence that happened in the little town of Mogo. I was getting ready to post a second coincidence that happened in that same shop, and was wondering whether I should make it a second entry for today, or wait a few more minutes (till midnight) and make it tomorrow's post instead.

Then, coincidentally, I happened upon Nash's "Coincidence Files" blog entry, where he invited others to add their own coincidence anecdotes. Oooh, spooky.

So, here goes... In about 1968, one of the kids at school (we were in 4th Class) had a great issue of "The Flintstones" comic, which featured the introduction of The Gruesomes family (ie. Weirdly, Creepella and little Goblin, and their pet, Schneider the spider), who move into the same street as the Flintstones and the Rubbles. I'd only recently seen an episode with these characters on TV, and we had immediately realised that the prehistoric Gruesomes were an obvious satire on the live action series, "The Addams Family", which had begun airing in the same US TV season as "The Munsters" (1964). Weirdly Gruesome was very reminiscent of Gomez Addams, Creepella was like Morticia, and Gobby was rather like Pugsley. (Weirdly and Creepella were also uncannily similar to comedy/singing duo, Sonny & Cher!)

Now, 1968 was about about six years before any schools or public libraries had photocopiers, so if another kid had a comic you coveted, but was unwilling to agree to a trade of precious merchandise, then there was really no way you were ever going to own that particular comic. "The Flintstones" were really big in Australia in 1968; we all pestered our Mums to buy only Nabisco's "Weeties" for breakfast, as the pop-up Flintstones trading cards were only available as premiums in that cereal.

I convinced my friend, Vito, to lend me the comic for a few days/weeks, as its "origin" storyline really intrigued me. My young aunt had just left high school and was teaching herself to type, so I asked her if she'd consider using the comic as typing practice. I supplied her with a coil-bound stenographer's pad someone had given me and asked her to type up the speech balloons, leaving a few spaces for pictures.

I hadn't considered that the pages had to be torn from the binding to be inserted into the typewriter, and I also hadn't realised my aunt would only put one comic frame's speech bubble per sheet of paper. Therefore, Janice ran out of pages in no time, and had to supply a second steno pad (of slightly different dimensions) to complete the script. Although I was really grateful that she'd actually completed the bizarre task I'd set her, the end result meant that there were now hundreds of drawings needed! Needless to say, after one or two drawings, my enthusiasm petered right out, and the pile of unbound papers eventually ended up forgotten on the bottom of the toy box.

So, anyway, last month I visited that same aunt, now living in Nowra. It was a long-promised return visit, as January 1976 was the last time I'd been down her way! I entertained her with many anecdotes about the good ol' days, but she was often amazed that my brain remembered such obscure things in great detail. Our conversations meandered off on tangents often and, although I'd planned to mention the wacky typing assignment I'd given her in 1968, the topic got changed several times more and I didn't ever get to that story.

That very afternoon, I ended up in quaint little Mogo on the way home. And, in that same second hand bookshop I blogged about this morning, there it was... a hardcover picture book for just $4.00: "The Flintstones Meet the Gruesomes" (1965). Strange, but true. And a bargain at any price, I reckon.


The Flintstones Meet the Gruesomes

By the way, one of the first times I ran dry on ideas for blog entries, when I first started blogging, I threatened to tell a very different, weird coincidence story, and I don't think I've ever gotten around to writing it up - mainly because it's genuine "Twilight Zone" material, and still spooks the hell out of me - but maybe I'll write up that one as well...

The Royal Easter Show: 10 years at Olympic Park

So where did that decade go?

Sydney's Royal Easter Show celebrates 100 years of its Grand Parade this year, but also ten years of shows since the move from Moore Park! I had plans to write up a report last night, of yesterday's visit to the 2007 Show, but I ended up fully absorbed in a conversation with a friend on MSN Messenger and midnight slipped right by.

I like attending the Show on Easter Sunday. When I was a kid, Easter Sunday was the one day the Show wasn't open; I guess to give the Show people a chance to celebrate Easter. It seems that many people still avoid that day - many families seem to have a particular, traditional day to attend - although the afternoons start to get rather busy. As a child, we almost always went to the Show on what used to be the last day: the Tuesday after Easter, known as Children's Day, when kids' entry was half price, and prices on showbags and some rides were slashed. The change to the Four Term School Year changed all that and, this year, the Show didn't actually start until the day before Good Friday.

The weather was kind. Not too warm, not too cold, and dark clouds lingering but never dropping their load. I've ben to the Show on many a wet day. Moore Park used to turn to sludge very quickly! I must say, the Homebush Bay venues (built for the Sydney Olympics of 2000) have made the Show more comfortable, if a little clinical and perhaps less nostalgic.

I spent wisely; only a few indulgences, such as King Island cheeses, fruit flavoured licorice and el cheapo Bertie Beetle showbags.

Antennae all round!:


Left: Bertie Beetle, 2007; Right: Thizzard with Andorians, 1984.

But: I must share a bizarre anecdote from the 80s! Every year there seems to be some wacky must-have novelty at the Easter Show. One year, it would be yo-yos, or silly headbands with stars on springs, or inflatable hats. One year, people all over the show "walking" wire leashes with a dog collar attached, as if walking an invisible pet canine. The next year, everyone was "walking" lizards on leashes! Their foam rubber bodies made these simple puppets look incredibly realistic.

I was with a group of new "Star Trek" friends that year, and I bought myself a blue lizard, with the intention of attaching little blue pipe-cleaner antennae to make him into an Andorian "thizzard". We were standing around in the car park after the Show, with me demonstrating my thizzard-walking skills, when actor/entrepreneur Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson of "Number 96" fame) came walking past with his two sons.

About six months later. My thizzard accompanied a group of us to a "Star Trek" costume party which, coincidentally, turned out to be several doors down from the "Number 96" building in Moncur Street, Woollahra! When we arrived home, my thizzard was missing, apparently having scuttled off into the dark, where we assume he made a home for himself in the cellar of "96".

The next year, you can bet that I was back at the Show, hoping to be able to replace my lost thizzard. I was successful! As I was standing in the car park, practising my thizzard-walking skills once again, I enthralled my small audience with how Joe Hasham and his sons had walked by last time. We looked up, and who was walking towards us? Joe Hasham and family! I kid you not. (I wonder if he thought, "There's that crazy stalker guy with the blue lizard again? Keep clear, kids!")

Have a great time at the Show if you decide to go this year. The popular item this year seemed to be magic haemitite juggling stones. And, as far as I know, Joe Hasham's still in offshore, and it was Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban at the Show today!

Note: The above photo of Therin, Tharrah, child and thizzard is from the premiere night of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" at the Pitt Centre, Sydney.

The cosmic consciousness II

A few weeks ago, I discussed the concept of an inexplicable Star Trek cosmic consciousness. Today, on TrekBBS, someone asked about why he couldn't contribute his own ideas for Star Trek novels, which the pro authors could then pick up on, then write novels on his dream ST topics.

Pro authors are never short of a new idea. Ideas are the easy bit. It's the grunt work of writing (and rewriting) them up in novel form that's so hard. You should see my ideas file!

Eventually, all the really great ideas turn up without any need for me - or anyone - to promote them, because great ideas occur to lots of other ST fans, too. And most of the ST writers are also fans. For example: when I first saw "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979, I visualised the next big ST adventure, featuring TMP's main cast and with all the wonderful new alien UFP races in supporting roles. As a naive, newbie ST fan I even wrote my first fanfic from that angle. Weirdly for me, just weeks after that fanfic ("Hoodwinked") had won a short story competition and was published in a fanzine, along came the pro novel "Black Fire" by Sonni Cooper, set in that TOS-turning-to-TMP era, and which shared no less than thirteen coincidental plot points with my story. But I also knew it was impossible for Sonni to have been inspired by my story: it was all just wacky coincidence.

And, eventually, along came Christopher L Bennett's "Ex Machina". Reading it, even though I hadn't thought of doing a sequel to "For the World is Hollow...", the novel felt so much like the style of post-TMP story I'd always wanted to tell. Christopher even ensured that all the wonderful new alien UFP races of TMP were in supporting roles, and it still feels as if he'd written "Ex Machina" just for me. (Well, apart from what he did with one character, LOL.)

My second fanfic was a prequel (and sequel) to "Space Seed", in which I tried to anticipate events which might occur in the as-yet-unreleased ST II - and my story, "A Model Officer", actually ended years later, with Kyle on the Reliant. Imagine my shock and delight when actor John Winston - as Kyle - turned up on ST II. On Reliant!

Similarly, I once did an interview with Robert Greenberger, the then-Star Trek comics editor at DC Comics, and mentioned how cool a ST novel set on Andor would be: a book that managed to discuss Andorian sexuality, politics, family life, etc, and we laughed about how such a novel would never get approved by the then-Star Trek Office. Years later, along came Heather Jarman's "Andor: Paradigm" in "Worlds of Star trek: Deep Space Nine, Book 1". Again, it was as if she'd written the whole story for me .

But I guess my Andorian enthusiasm paid off anyway, since my Andorian persona gets a cameo mention in both of those recent pro novels, even though I had no idea I'd be acknowledged (until just before each book got published), and I'd never discussed my ideas with either author, nor posted them online. It was mostly just wonderful coincidence - a tapping into the cosmic consciousness, perhaps - and proof, to me, that good ideas will rise to the surface, no matter what.

The cosmic consciousness

There's a theory, isn't there, that writers and other creative people can tap into a kind of cosmic consciousness? And this is why two authors can seem to come up with an almost-identical set of thought processes at the exact same time. While some cynics may even try to label it plagiarism, I reckon it's amazing how often it is very definitely something more inexplicable than mere coincidence.

Last night, Jörg, a semi-regular Internet contact, was researching the Efrosian race, from Star Trek, and discovered that, only minutes before, I had added a comment to an old discussion page on Memory Alpha's Wiki on... Efrosians! We were both trying to ascertain details of a certain cut scene from "ST IV: The Voyage Home", for which a publicity still exists - of a short-haired Efrosian wearing a UFP (United Federation of Planets) badge. Had he ever been officially confirmed as playing a particular role? My theory was that he was intended to be an usher in the UFP Council scenes; the end credits mention "ushers", but the extras(?) playing them had no lines to spout in the final film, and didn't even seem to be visible in the onscreen footage. This comment of mine led my friend back to my blog entry about Efrosians. He'd been researching some embroidered patches bought at one of the big recent ST costume and props auctions from the 40th anniversary celebrations of TOS.

It was almost midnight here for me (and probably midday for him), but we shot an email back and forth - and suddenly he had new freeze frame shots from the various ST movies in my email tray. And lo, he found onscreen evidence of a male usher(!) in the matching uniform, but not the mysterious Efrosian. Technology is making us move so fast. I wasn't mentally prepared for obscure trivia after midnight, but it was fascinating (to us) anyway.

Above: Cut scene of Efrosian usher (left); closeup on cloth badge (dignitaries wore blue-enamelled metal versions that hung under the "UFP" badge); human usher stands near UFP President and Klingon Ambassador (right).

UPDATE: And years later, we found this:

Deja vu all over again

Cheers, everyone! Here I was scratching my head trying to think of something inspirational for the blog and I quickly reached Writer's Block - only three days into it and already I hit a wall? So I cleaned out my wallet, as you do. (You know, all those ATM receipts and scraps of paper with phone numbers, and half remembered names of people you should remember because you once bothered putting their phone number on a piece of paper...)

There was my aunt's mobile phone number! One that I hadn't transferred into the mobile's handy dandy phone book. I typed in her name and number, and quickly and proudly sent her a perfectly typed text message, "This is ian's mobile!" OK, so I haven't quite got the hang of CAPS yet. Just as fast, the reply turned up: "I think u have wrong number." (Hmm, maybe it wasn't her number after all? Or she changed numbers at some point? Would my aunt be tech savvy enough to text "u" when she means "you"?)

After dinner I rang her on the regular phone - and it had been her. She'd figured it wasn't me because... "Ian doesn't have a mobile."

Dammit. I've had the rotten thing for two weeks now and I've sent messages to everyone I know with a mobile - but no one is replying because they don't realize it's really me, or it might be a junk call, or they might get a virus, or somesuch. Someone, please ring me! Otherwise how else do I test if my ringtones work, dammit?

Anyway, while my aunt and I were on the (real?) phone, we shared several old and new instances of deja vu. One involved a friend of mine who'd once asked me to duck out and post some business envelopes containing bills for the customers of his florist shop. I recognised one of the addresses as being a house directly opposite my place of work, but a good two suburbs away from his shop, which is why he was posting it.

"Don't put a stamp on that one," I said. "Leave it with me and I'll put it in their letterbox on my way home from work tomorrow."

"No," he replied. "Just post it with the others."

(Did he not trust me to remember? Highly likely. And I'd probably have forgotten it in the depths of my backpack, knowing me...) I decided it wasn't worth arguing, so I posted it.

The next day, as I was walking home from work, I found that still-sealed envelope, now with its stamp cancelled by Australia Post, lying in the street! So I had to pick it up and deliver it to their letterbox myself... "Spooky!", as Dame Edna would say.

Which brings me to the wacky deja vu anecdote that I was going to use for this blog entry! And, typically, I've waffled on far too long, so maybe now I'll just save up the story of the freaky-little-old-man-with-Coke-bottle-glasses for another time...?