A White Christmas, made to order

A White Christmas with my penpal, Olivia Lynn Bottum! This week's humidity and 40+ degrees C (aka 105 degrees F) temperatures have been enough to remind me I'm very definitely in the Southern Hemisphere this December! Thank you to all my wonderful Blogger readers and, increasingly, my Facebook Friends. Thanks for sharing your (and my) moments of triumph, joy, hilarity, irony, frustration and sadness throughout 2013. This is a great (still-newish), supportive and growing community. You make me laugh, commiserate and think deeply every day!

After the continuation of the dusting of snow from the afternoon of December 24, Christmas Day in Ann Arbor, Michigan, delighted me in that every time I looked out a window or door, lovely, feathery snow was falling. I think it fell for about three days non-stop. Delightful, and as if it were made to order.

Day 3 photos:

An Andorian sock monkey enjoys the snow while it lasts.

Olivia's Peruvian-themed Christmas tree, complete with... Peruvian Barbie.

A meeting of two traditional desserts: American pumpkin pie shares a plate with an Aussie Christmas pudding.

The vacuum packed plum pudding, from Itha's Puddings & Gourmet Foods, Sydney, traveled with me in my hand luggage and is from a 100-year old English recipe from the maker's own family.

The sock monkey cavorting with the angels. The Christmas angels were made by Reed's Mom,
Dorothy Lenz, using pine cones, acorns, milkweed pods, long wooden golf tees and pipe-cleaners!

After lunch, we investigated screening times for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", which had been running in the US since my birthday, but was about to premiere back home in Sydney. Luckily, the venue we chose had the 3D (and HFR) version of the film plus the 3D trailer for "Star Trek Into Darkness". Later, we discovered that our alternate choice of cinema venue was not running the "Star Trek" trailer. Lucky! Serendipitous!

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Andorian Sock Monkey"

And lo, it was good. But long!

Waiting with Delta

Not many pics today, as the early part of the day was spent in the domestic terminal at LAX, staring at a series of about 32 changing screens, desperately hoping to see my code "MCLE/I" appear (telling me that I had, indeed, secured a seat on my flight to Detroit). Then there was the flight itself, and an interminable wait for my bag to appear on the luggage carousel.

All of this panic and boredom - not helped by an understaffed terminal with no one to ask questions - was swept aside by the single snowflake that spattered against my wind as the plane landed in Detroit. By the time my bag had dared to show its straps, and the cab had arrived, there was a delightful dusting of snow everywhere. Arriving in Ann Arbor, at my penpal Olivia's house, the roads and footpaths were all white. Their first snowfall of the season, and it delivered me the White Christmas I'd come to see! It seemingly snowed for at least three days straight. Every view out every door and window was a northern-hemisphere Christmas card!

Day 2 photos:

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — in Ann Arbor, MI.
We had not swapped notes about T-shirt themes, either! Serendipity!

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — but this time outside... in the newly-fallen snow!

Ian and Olivia meeting in December 1983 (New Year's Eve, actually) - and on Christmas Eve, December 2012.

Olivia and I had "met" in the pages of the newsletter of ASTREX, the Star Trek Fan Club of New South Wales, and immediately bonded over penpal correspondence, Trek gossip, and articles about the Aussie TV soap opera, "Prisoner", which Olivia used to watch as both "Cell Block H" (in the USA) and "Caged Women" (via a Canadian channel whose signal strayed across the border into Michigan).

Archival pic: Ian (and his beard) encountering hamsters up close, for the first time, at Olivia's place in December 1991.

The delightful Dorothy Lenz (Olivia's mother-in-law) and Ian, 2012.

USA bound!

Off on a US adventure. The International Date Line played havoc with my attempts to file and upload them.

So here's Day 1:

"Please turn your electronic and mobile devices OFF!" — at Kingsford Smith-Sydney International Airport.

Ah, luxury! — at Crowne Plaza LAX Hotel. With my travel mascot, the Andorian sock monkey. The monkey being a Starfleet redshirt, I thought him a sensible addition to my Away Mission. It always worked for Kirk to take Ensign Ricky.

Okay, so it's an ad for Laxettes Land, but some of the letters fell down? — at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

I was walking right under the flight path to get to the phone shop, on the other side of those signs. They coulda warned me! — at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

Yay! I'm connected at last and it's still yesterday! Time travel really is wonderful! — at Crowne Plaza LAX Hotel.

"I want to make it in Hollywood... as a tap dancer. (But I keep falling in the sink.)" — at Crowne Plaza LAX Hotel.

Fame is fleeting... and Blogger is slow!

Maybe you've been wondering where I've been?

Well, a few months ago, an automated message told me that neither Firefox nor Safari web browsers would be supported by the latest upgrades to Blogger and that, if I wanted to be able to keep posting efficiently, I needed to switch to, or at least install, Google Chrome. Then Google Chrome strongly suggested that I make Google Chrome my default browser. Mmmmmm.

Problem is, I really, really like Firefox - and my first attempts to upload (or link) to things like slideshows made with Flash suddenly weren't being supported by Google Chrome. Mmmmmm.

And everything seems to be running sooooo slow. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!

These days I do spend quite a bit of time over on on Facebook and, when a FB thread would become noteworthy, I was often turning that into a more polished blog entry, but these recent changes to Blogger - and the agonising slowness of Blogger to load (especially when keyword searching for a previous blog entry in my History) - has stripped out all the spontaneity. If I can't find an efficient way to auto-synchronise Blogger, Twitter and Facebook, without my entries looking like bizarre cut-and-paste jobs filled with bad formatting and "@" symbols all over the place - I'm afraid time just runs out for well-considered, longer, funnier, blog posts. The art of commenting on blog posts also seems to have dried up in recent years. Again, the same anecdote or pic on Facebook will garner many more responses, even though my potential audience there is much smaller.

Anyway, braving the current mire that is Blogger and Google Chrome, I shall persist, and, if it works, I might try to find time to retro-add some old blog entries that have been stockpiling in my memory.

A friend emailed me this morning to ask, "Did you read about yourself in 'Good Weekend' this weekend? I think you were the man in the leopard skin suit (jacket) in the story on Selwa Anthony."

OMG? The leopardskin print shirt I wore at last September's Sassy Awards? Off to the newsagents I went! Joe Bananas (of QVB) did say, when I bought the shirt on his strong recommendation, that it was a shirt that no one would forget. It kinda rubs it in, when I'm so far behind on blog entries. That shirt is old news now.

Okay, I'm back from the newsagent! He gave me the supplement for free because it was yesterday's news! Page 9, "Never-Ending Story"; Tim Elliott's article on Selwa in the "Sydney Morning Herald" magazine supplement. I guess I'm the guy in the "full leopard skin suit" who "nods hungrily" at Selwa's suggestion that we be "ready to dance". Never let the truth get in the way of a good anecdote. (Mr Elliott is in good company here!) Ha ha!

It's not my first time being featured in leopard skin, either, thanks in the first instance to Geoffrey McSkimming when he put me in a "School Magazine" play!

Above: Thanks to writer, Geoffrey McSkimming, and artist, Tohby Riddle, I once featured in a "School Magazine" play ("Touchdown", Vol 87, No 10, Nov 2002, pp 341-346). The character of "Ian, the lost librarian", a Tarzan memorabilia fanatic (instead of "Star Trek"), appears in "Mr A at the Floor of Heaven, or, Not Quite Yeti".

"The misguided librarians are lost in the snow,
Dewey's their system, but snowy they go..."

Ian the librarian wears a spotted loincloth over his snow-pants, of course. He is one of those tiny silhouettes in Tohby's artwork, and was joined by my real life workmates at SCIS & "Scan": Anne (aka "Mrs Dowling"), Wendy and Deirdre.

Yes, fame is fleeting! And Google Chrome is slow.

Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History

It's out!

"Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History" has arrived at Galaxy Bookshop.

The Trek's not over till the last Ewok falls!

Written by Robert Greenberger and edited by Scott Pearson for Voyageur Press. For those playing at home, it features a few photos from my own collection. Look out for my Arex and M'Ress Filmation TAS customized action figures (page 58), yours truly as Maltz the Klingon, introducing Bjo Trimble at Eccentricon (page 135), the "Star Trek"-themed Mr Potato Heads I bought from Kings Comics (page 135), Lana Pennington-Brown's beautiful artwork of Data and Tasha on a Mike McGann-printed sweater (page 145), and my "United Federation of Paramount" t-shirt from Lincoln Enterprises (page 146).

Customised Tuvix, Dr Selar, Arex, M'Ress and Trader Worf with tribbles.

I've only had a chance to do some quick riffling so far, but there is some really great stuff in here! Nostalgia plus for fans of any era, but particularly those who remember the original TV series of the 60s with fondness, the Filmation animated series and the six classic movies. Later chapters look at the tie-in novels, collectibles and the expansion of the franchise with "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine", "Voyager" and "Enterprise".

The ideal book for Christmas gift-giving to that hard-to-buy-for Trek fan in your life?

Oh! I had forgotten that I can claim responsibility for another pic in the book, although it wasn't taken by me. On page 199, there is an image of the Playmates' "Flashback" Janeway action figure. I was the winner of a design contest by Playtrek listserv and New Force Comics, who needed an exclusive figure that could be achieved by a simple headswap and repaint, so I suggested Kathryn Janeway's head on Saavik's body, in Janice Rand's ST VI and "Flashback" colour scheme. And I won, I won!

Friends of Phyllis Wong

Today, at The Children's Bookshop, Beecroft, Paul Macdonald introduced the irrepressible author Geoffrey McSkimming, of "Cairo Jim" fame, to a young audience who'd come to celebrate the start of Book Week with some magic! Geoffrey read from his new novel, "Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto", the first in a projected series of six books. His professional magic adviser on the book, Sue-Anne Webster, performed some wonderful feats with the help of members of the audience. There were autographs and collectible lapel badges for all!

Paul Macdonald introduces Geoffrey McSkimming

Author Geoffrey McSkimming is about to unleash his "Saturday imagination",
and magician Sue-Anne Webster prepares to catch it in a paper bag
at The Children's Bookshop. (For his weekday imagination, Geoffrey
would need a bigger container.)

A highlight of the event:
Geoffrey: "Any questions?"
Comment from audience: "What's behind that black cloth?"
Geoffrey: "Books I didn't write."

To kill a mockingbird in 2012

Old and new: 1963 Sydney premiere of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and today's presentation
at the same theatre (2012), to celebrate 100 years of Universal Studios.

Yesterday, I was off to kill a mockingbird. In glorious black and white.

What a coincidence that this movie played a reprise screening. I am deep into the original novel at the moment, in preparation for a course in creative writing with author Jeni Mawter, at the Sydney Writers' Centre, Milson's Point.

The State's publicity blurb said, "Screen legend Gregory Peck stars as courageous Southern lawyer, Atticus Finch - the Academy Award-winning performance hailed by the American Film Institute as the 'Greatest Movie Hero of All Time'. Based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about innocence, strength and conviction and nominated for eight Academy Awards."

And it was a great film. The little boy beside me was quaking in his seat, but watching through his hands. So much of the music was familiar, especially the suspense theme.

Prior to the screening of the main attraction, a b/w Cinesound newsreel from 1963 was shown. It started with the Christmas Parade of 1962, down the main street of Adelaide, then a gala day for the fire brigades, the triumphant return of the new Miss Australia to her home atate (SA), and included a festival on the Great Barrier Reef. Quote of the newsreel: "After [tennis champion] Rod Laver declares the [Great Barrier Reef] festival open, all the towns go gay."

R.I.P. Gene DeWeese

Awww. Sad.

I just heard that "Star Trek" and science fiction novelist, Gene DeWeese, passed away last March.

If I recall correctly, Margaret Wander Bonanno (garamet on the TrekBBS message board) was a friend of his. Certainly, Gene himself briefly joined several conversations on the old Psi Phi bbs if/when anyone began discussing his books, sometimes only minutes after someone mentioned his name.

I swapped a few email exchanges with him about his contribution to "Star Trek" over the years. Always witty and chirpy. I'd really enjoyed the early "The Peacekeepers", the second orginal novel featuring "The Next Generation" characters, although "Chain of Attack", an original series novel, felt a little too techy to me; I was thrilled to notice it was actually a followup to Lee Correy's "Abode of Life". I know that, for many fans, "Chain of Attack" was their first original ST novel experience, being part of a major design rejig by Pocket Books - the first on shelves after the release of the much-hyped, international hit, "ST IV: The Voyage Home". "Chain of Attack" was released in the UK as Book #1 of a new publishing program (Titan Books).

For many ST fans, "Chain of Attack" is as revered as Vonda McIntyre's "The Entropy Effect". Or James Blish's "Spock Must Die!" Or Mack Reynolds' "Mission to Horatius".

The most memorable aspect of Gene's "The Final Nexus", a direct sequel to "Chain of Attack", was the feisty female guest character depicted on the cover, plus his very welcome reuse of Ingrit Thomson, the non-canonical female security officer shared by several other TOS writers of the day. "Renegade" I read, but don't really remember much about it now.

I do recall expressing my frustration, once, on Psi Phi, with how frustratingly dull and slow "Into the Nebula" was - so slow that I'd quite forgotten any details of the plot. To my initial embarrassment, Gene suddenly popped up - from a long bbs absence - to admit that he, neither, could remember anything about that novel's plot, except that the Enterprise-D crew went into a nebula.

Discussions by the regulars on Psi Phi and TrekBBS about the mysterious "Engines of Destiny" (listed in Steve Roby's online "Lost Star Trek books" archive after someone noticed several unpublished draft manuscripts that Gene had donated to a public library's reference collection), led to garamet summoning Gene to the bbs again to tell us more about it - and, ultimately, to then-Pocket editor Marco Palmieri reactivating Gene's contract to publish it.

R.I.P. Gene.

Hold on to your pointed ears!

How does fifteen discs of soundtrack music from the original series of "Star Trek" sound?

For more about STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION, visit www.lalalandrecords.com now and join the STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES SOUNDTRACK MAILING LIST to receive important forthcoming information and announcements regarding the release, such as the official release date, the number of units pressed, pricing and much more!

It is "licensed by CBS Consumer Products and produced in cooperation with GNP Crescendo Records, the longtime home of pioneering classic Star Trek television and film soundtracks. GNP Crescendo’s Neil Norman has allowed for episode scores previously and exclusively released by Crescendo to be newly expanded and remastered for this box set, in order to make the collection as comprehensive as possible."

How cool is that?

Therin again!

Star Trek: Titan: Fallen Gods

I picked up a new "Star Trek" novel from Galaxy Bookshop yesterday - and just discovered that my Andorian alter ego, Therin (from 1980), has once again been saluted.

"Titan: Fallen Gods" by Michael A Martin has a ship named after Shantherin th'Clane (aka Therin), a character first introduced in the pro novel, "Ex Machina" (Christopher L Bennett, 2004), and namesake of Therin Park and New Therin Park in five other novels!

25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Sydney's cinemas hosted the 25th anniversary of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" event last night. Several venues around Sydney (and other Australian capitals), in fact, and the Dendy, Newtown, managed to fill two cinemas in the one complex. So pleased I'd dieted enough to fit into this old favourite top again! It seemed a fitting sweater to wear.
The cinema showed "Where No One Has Gone Before", which introduces the Traveler (and is loosely based on Diane Duane's Trek novel, "The Wounded Sky") and "Datalore", which introduces Lore, Data's evil brother. Selected by Mike and Denise Okuda as good examples of the greatly enhanced special effects footage for high definition Blu-ray. Also showed some "making of the HD" footage and a preview of enhanced "The Measure of a Man" (Season Two) for which they've added previously cut scenes.
And, I just found out that this fan-printed Data "sloppy joe" from 1988 (artwork by Lana Pennington-Brown) is to prominently featured at the beginning of Chapter 12 in the forthcoming book, "The Complete Unauthorized History of Star Trek" by Robert Greenberger!

Marathon efforts

In the 70s and 80s, Sydney- and Melbourne-based fans of "Star Trek" ("the original series") owed a lot to each other in keeping their fandom alive.

Communal watching of episodes was often reported from US university dorms in the 60s, and Australians living in our two biggest capitals were able to tap into that phenomenon with Bob Johnston's "Star Trek" Marathons at ANZAC House in College Street, Sydney, opposite Hyde Park. Bob would send episodes down to the Melbourne fans to run monthly Marathons, too.

Seeing TOS (six episodes, later five episodes plus a TAS ep.,) on the big screen at monthly gatherings was how our original fans got their Star Trek fix - and how new fans, drawn into fandom by ST:TMP, caught up with what had gone before. Our TV network holding the rights had sat on them, rather than repeat the episodes (only about eight when colour TV debuted in 1975).

The marathons in the CBD offered a regular meeting place for fans, a place to buy the rarer merchandise and fanzines, and two intermissions where shy and gregarious fans alike could strike up a conversation with a new friend over a devon-and-cheese sandwich (later - toasted as jaffles!) and a paper cup of Coca-Cola. And know they would have at least an appreciation of Star Trek in common, if nothing else.

A few months before ST II arrived in cinemas, a rival network snapped up the rights to TOS... and fandom just got stronger. The marathons survived - barely - two moves after ANZAC House (and its theatrette) was demolished. But even the TV network realised that TOS worked well in large, communal groups, hence:

The phenomenon of diehard fans getting "trekked out" was common enough. Sometimes otherwise-passionate people either vanished, for years at a time, or forever. Or, they'd give away all their memorabilia and tell the rest of us - very loudly - we were all idiots for liking TOS, the movies, TNG, or DS9. (I very nearly faded away myself with the earliest eps of DS9.)

As much as I love the ST novels, there was a time when they were coming out two-per-month, and now most of them have doubled or tripled their word count. Even though only one-per-month, its still more books than I can get a chance to read, plus the comics keep coming.

Staying a Star Trek fan really does take hard work, and local support networks have changed radically since the early 90s. About the time Bob stopped doing his Star Trek marathons. Sigh.

Literally beside myself: Therin and Grol at ANZAC House,
at a monthly Star Trek marathon

Redshirts!

To promote his new Star Trek-esque book "Red Shirts," author John Scazli and publisher Tor created a new song called "Red Shirts" by Jonathan Coulton:

The tribute music video was created by TrekPropGuy.

See more information about the book (and forthcoming audio novel, narrated by The Next Generation's Wil Wheaton), by checking out the link.

Play date for Jack!

Jack on a play date at Zena's

Billy

Lexx II

Nicky

Jack at Zena's

Federation: The First 150 Years

There is an exciting, forthcoming "Star Trek" reference book from 47North and becker&mayer! publishers (November 2012). Written by David A Goodman, the hardcover book will feature illustrations by Joe Corroney, Mark McHaley, Cat Staggs and Jeff Carlisle, and will be presented in a unique pedestal display including audio by George (Sulu) Takei.

(Above:) Captain Jonathon Archer of "Enterprise" (NX-01), with Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite ambassadors, presumably making his infamous gazelle speech. Believe it or not, I own both the Andorian and Tellarite robes depicted in this picture.

Federation: The First 150 Years

More information about this publication can be found at Memory Alpha.

In the news...

Pic by Gary Warrick. Penrith City Star's coverage of my John H Lee Memorial Award for "excellence in leadership in innovative and collaborative teaching practice through the integration of learning technologies". Presented jointly by School Library Association of NSW and Charles Sturt University. See the full article HERE.