Props, costumes and auctions, oh my!

Over recent weeks, my monitoring of the It's a Wrap! auctions of Star Trek props and costumes led me to a great online bulletin board (BBS) for collectors of Star Trek props and costumes. I can highly recommend it as a place where questions are answered, answers are questioned (always in a friendly, helpful manner), and the members display amazing access to encyclopedic knowledge of ST trivia.


Star Trek Props, Costumes and Auctions BBS

As for my own journey as a SF media costumier - and authentic Star Trek prop collector - I cobbled together my first TOS redshirt in 1980, from an old red velour sweater. Coincidentally, this favourite velour top had some tiny holes right where the insignia and rank stripes should be.

Over the years, my Andorian persona, Therin, got to wear a homemade beige TMP costume, a ST II-style uniform, and a formal tailcoat, depending on the occasion, be it convention or movie premiere night. A friend made me the TNG outfit in which I played Data several times. My mother helped me to make a Robin the Boy Wonder costume (from TV's "Batman" series), a David Marcus shirt, and a "Greatest American Hero" costume. Our Star Trek club once spent a weekend casting plaster moulds of each other, and making latex appliances, which is when I made my Maltz (the Klingon from ST III) head! After growing a beard for a few years, I also began to play a Tellarite named Grol.

Owning an actual screen-used costume is going to be a very different type of satisfaction and excitement, as making replica costumes was a wonderful challenge, and perhaps something I've really missed since so much of interactive ST fandom vanished from Sydney in the 90s.

Performing in a costume parade (when not actually hosting or judging them) was also very fulfilling. It's not just wearing a good replica, or choosing something that suits your personality and/or physical dimensions, it's staying in character. And that clever one-line quip during the performance can really make a costume, and can definitely tip the voting in your favour.

A few examples:

I was in my Robin the Boy Wonder costume, with friends dressed as Batgirl and Lois Lane. Our Batman failed to turn up at the convention. The theme of the convention was "V: The Series" and the guest was Judson Scott (aka Lt James). As we came out, Lois pretended to be taking notes and I exclaimed to Batgirl, "Holy indigestion! Batman's been eaten by a Visitor!" (We won best group in that costume parade.)

My friend Karen and I came out dressed as Andorians - at a science fiction literary convention, no less - and I presented her to Guest of Honour, Harlan Ellison, and said, "Isn't she blue-tiful?" (We won best couple, even though Harlan has his infamous love/hate relationship with Star Trek.)

Bjo Trimble - "the woman who saved Star Trek" in the 60s - once told a convention audience about a very shy girl in a costume parade, who came out dressed as a female version of Luke Skywalker ("Star Wars"), with a life-sized Yoda doll/backpack on her shoulders (as per "The Empire Strikes Back"). She asked the Yoda doll, "How can I prove my Jedi powers, Master Yoda?" Yoda replied, "Levitate audience you will." She simply closed her eyes and wiggled her fingers a bit. When she opened her eyes again, the entire audience had stood, as one. Spectacular!

Bjo also mentioned one of the poorest efforts she'd seen at costuming. A beautiful young girl, wearing a stunningly brief slave girl Leia "Return of the Jedi" outfit, but she walked out "as if going to the shop to get a milkshake". As I said the other night, clothes maketh the alien - but so, it seems, does performance.

Raiding my old photo albums for some fun stuff to put on Flickr!, here are some scenes from Sale of the 23rd Century. This was a parody game show, performed and videoed live at Brisbane's Con Amore in 1985. The edited footage, with titles, a few newly-shot insert sequences, plus some special effects, became the first fan film of Harpic Productions. As a lark, I nominated the fan film for an Australian Science Fiction Media Award, and it ended up winning in the category of "Best Audiovisual Production". No doubt we were helped by the fact that many fans voting had seen the live version at the previous national convention.


Therin of Andor and Tackee the Orion slave girl (left); Therin and Tharrah see Tackee get shocked (centre); the contestants resolve a tied score (right). Photos by John Tipper, 1985.

Propwise, I own one of the very last large two-toned, screen-used 60s tribbles (from "The Trouble With Tribbles") that David Gerrold found in his garage a few years ago. I also have: a security clearance set pass from TMP; a patch of artificial Genesis Cave grass from Stage 5 (ST II); Majel Barrett and Michael Berryman cue cards (from ST IV); an unfinished breathing mask prop from ST V; a security clearance set pass from TNG; two "Starfleet Materiel Supply Command 01" cargo deck decals (one red; one blue); and a "baggie full of Star Trek" - bits of carpet, decking, wood and wire from ST: TNG - collected from the set by Bjo Trimble.




My favourite item might just be: a little clay tabletop-model house from the Old Bandi City of "Encounter at Farpoint", which were once attached to dozens of Christmas cards given out by the SPFX guys to the cast and crew.


Originally located on Deneb IV, somehow this little cottage was transported backwards through time and space - and is now situated on a plot of grass from the Genesis Planet. Yes, it's my Little Bandi House on the Prairie.


And my apologies to my niece, Beckie, who likes all my blog posts except the Star Trek ones. Sorry, Beck, it's been a big Star Trek week!

Write now!

I attended my second, once-per-term, teacher-librarians' district meeting today (back into the swing of a decade ago, when I was last practising as a teacher-librarian in schools!). It was great to be in such a positive, enthusiastic atmosphere with like-minded professionals. One of the guest speakers was Lee FitzGerald, a friend and former "Scan" editor. It was great to catch up with her and hear all the brave and exciting teacher-librarian challenges she's trying out in her school.

At one point, there were three "Scan" editors standing together over afternoon tea: Lee, the current editor Cath, and yours truly! A photo opportunity, but noone had a camera. Someone suggested we were perhaps the "three wise monkeys" and Cath quickly claimed being the one with her hands over her mouth. We were interrupted before assigning the other two monkeys.

Towards the end of the session, a teacher-librarian recognised me by my name tag, and gave me a great compliment about the quality of my book reviews in "Scan" over the years. What a buzz! I've been reviewing books and teaching resources for "Scan" since the early 90s, and I've now become quite accustomed to writing a pithy review in only 100 words; it's quite a skill to convey as much evaluative information as possible in such a short paragraph, and I guess I forget that these reviews get read and appreciated - even anticipated - by people.

"What else do you write?" she asked.

Mmmmm. "Nothing that's ever earned my agent a commission," I admitted guiltily. (Hi Selwa!)

I'm really going to have to fix this, you know... I now have about five skeletal children's book projects in my head, and on random computer files. As I walk to and from work each day, the words and ideas flow so easily. But when the computer gets turned on, they just don't transpose into something tangible. I end up playing on various bbs sites, telling myself I'm writing, but it's not really helping my word count. (Maybe I'm the fourth monkey? The unwise one, with his hands in his pockets?)

This blog is keeping me writing more regularly, sure, but I very much need to get regimented and show some real progress with my writing projects. Okay, the first of the month is almost here: a new beginning?

"Political Correctness is Intellectual Facism"

Sounds a bit heavy for this particular blogpage, I know, but an incident today certainly clarified several of my random thoughts into one big... well, I dunno. Mmmm, did I say "clarified"? I guess I'm still working through it.

Firstly, it's the now well-worn chestnut of people seemingly choosing to misinterpret the motives of innocent posts on the Internet. I'm quite up-front that there's an awful lot of "ego-boo" (to use a very 70s fannish term) when I share my seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek trivia. I do get a buzz out of it. And if I didn't share it, I'd have no excuse for saving all those issues of "Starlog", "Star Trek Communicator", "Cinefex" and "Cinfantastique".

Secondly, the Australian sense of humour (and, indeed, our unique brand of, umm, sarcasm) does not translate well on the Internet. If it wasn't for those little winking icons, I'd be totally sunk. ;) Sometimes it doesn't matter how carefully I prune a post, I'll wind up being accused of being deliberately: pompous; a know-it-all; egotistical (okay, I know I'm that, I just admitted as much); demeaning; abrasive... And so on.

Thirdly, I do know that the blame for ineffective communication falls upon the sender, not the receiver. But gee, scrutinizing every post for every possible permutation of misinterpretation does take away the spontaneity of posting to a Star Trek mailing list while eating breakfast.

Finally, I go back to two comments from last week's meeting of the Sydney Weblogger Meetup Group: the aforementioned quote by Steve Noble ("If you want to be noted by a particular audience... be noteworthy"), and another PR person's comment, when quoting a speaker at a conference about using new technologies, that if a blog entry wasn't confrontational to someone, then it wasn't really a blog, it was just a home page.

Yesterday, on a e-mailing list to which I belong, a question was asked about amateur Star Trek fan films. It seems that a recent, well-regarded fan film actually kills off a major character, whom fans know already survives into the Star Trek feature film series. So, my e-pal asked innocently enough, why weren't the fan films constrained to follow the official "Star Trek" canon?

As someone who's written many a fanzine story, and as an actor in an episode of Starship Exeter (not the fan film series in question, though), I answered thusly:

"Umm, because it's a work of fiction, based on TOS, but not the movies?

"Umm, because it wasn't produced by the copyright holder, so it's not a canonical episode.

"Umm, because no one dies in science fiction?

"Umm, because it's an alternative universe story?

"Just four of hundreds of possible answers."

That's written exactly as I thought it - no malice intended - but, in hindsight, it seems it was not the wisest way to write it. (Unless, perhaps, if I'm trying 'to be noted by a particular audience', some may suggest?) The person my answer was directed at took no offense to my comments - and, indeed, we'd had numerous very funny back-and-forth emails about several topics, fan films included, following that original first post.

But, this morning, all Hell broke loose (again). I read this comment, from Chris, another poster to the e-list:

"I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said 'Political Correctness is Intellectual Facism'. I happen to agree with that statement. The world is waaaaaay too over-sensitive about everything these days.

"I didn't read Ian's post as demeaning at all. I actually appreciated the sarcasm and saw it for what it was. It was witty and at the same time it made me think about why it [the fan film] would or would not be canonical.

"It would have been a very different thing if his response had been: 'You're an idiot. Duh!' Now THAT'S demeaning. But it wasn't.

"If we have arrived at the day in which sarcasm is no longer an acceptable vehicle for human expression, then I, for one, am extremely saddened.

"To Ian: you on keep writing, I'll keep reading."

(Permission to quote requested and received; thanks Chris.)

How cool is that? Until Chris mentioned the issue, I had no idea my previous post had been the subject of a dissection - and branded as "demeaning". I told the complainer, who'd leapt to the original posters's defence, "Please reread my post with a laconic Aussie accent and you'll see I was being my usual, bouncy, positive, gregarious (but obviously not humorous at all) self. Think maybe Mel Gibson without the alcohol. And the good looks. And the fortune in Californian real estate. And all those kids."

But hey, maybe I'm not "demeaning", "pompous", "a know-it-all" or "egotistical" at all - just "noteworthy"!?

I know I've complained about a lack of comments to my entries here before, and I don't - as yet - have a monitoring tool on the page to check out who's looking and how they found me, but - as a measure of reassurance - I received two really great emails today, from distant "Star Trek" colleagues who say they read this blog with interest "every day"! Way cool. Or k3wl even.

Delays, delays...

Over on the bulletin boards where "Star Trek" fiction is discussed, everyone is stressing because a couple of forthcoming titles have been announced as having shifted their publication dates. Usually by just one or two months, but I buy them all - and I have such a backlog that I certainly won't notice minor delays.

I remember well the early 80s when it was often a full eight months between Pocket ST novels. As stressful as it might be that a modern ST book might be delayed by - what? - all of four weeks, it really only matters to those who devour just one or two ST highly-anticipated titles per year, doesn't it?

My To Read stack hardly seems to have gotten any shorter since the world went wacky in 2002. (I changed jobs, and suddenly instead of having three and a half hours or more of travel time, I was walking distance to work!) And Pocket was churning out at least two or three new ST titles every month! To think that, until the very chunky four-part DS9 "Mission: Gamma" mini-series, I was actually caught up!

Who are you?

As I pondered here this time last month, I've found blogging to be quite confronting. People who know me in person know that I talk a lot and, when a writer writes, he or she is usually encouraged to write about what they know. Also, as a teacher of the writing process to children, I have to demonstrate how real writers research their potential audience first, then work out the most effective way to pitch their information.

All those attributes combine when I write my blog entries but, so far, "Who is my audience?" is impossible to gauge. Especially when comments are sparse - and even moreso when they are from anonymous strangers.

My quandary is, when blogging, I'm still sort of flying blind. I can just cast out what's on my mind at the moment, but I've also been using the blog to make a more permanent record of questions I attempt to answer on various "Star Trek" bulletin boards I frequent, since I found the trivia interesting the first time I encountered it, and blogging it catalogues it so I can refer to it next time the question gets asked again.

However, it means that, for you people who are regularly visiting this site for "Number 96" or "Star Trek" news, you may be disappointed when I go all Jack Russell on you. ;)

Did I mention that Jack threw up on my doona today? (The weekend's regurgitation episodes seem to be becoming a bit of a pattern this week. It's a new dry food, or rather, a hand-me-down dry food a friend passed to Jack when her dog rejected it.)

I'm washing the doona cover now, as I type. Oh, well, at least in winter Jack doesn't spend the day (and night) under the doona. Spoiled much, you ask?

Star Trek: the Aussie connection

Today, on TrekBBS, someone asked why none of the Star Trek series or movies featured a ridgie didge Australian character.



However, the poster had forgotten Wendy Hughes (left), aka Lt Cmdr Nella Daren, love interest of Captain Picard in "Lessons" (Star Trek: The Next Generation), is Australian, albeit without a strong accent. Born in Melbourne, Ms Hughes speaks (in most of her many TV, stage and movie roles Down Under, such as Lucy Sutcliffe's niece, Vanessa Harrison, on Number 96) with very cultivated English pronunciations, similar to many Aussie actresses working in Australia in the 70s. So, anyway, there's at least one Australian Starfleet officer.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Liam Bilby ("Honor Among Thieves") is also played by an Australian, Nick Tate (right), previously of Space: 1999 fame - and Holiday Island infamy! Since Bilby and his family reside at the New Sydney Colony - and a bilby is an Australian marsupial - I assume his character is also supposed to be of Australian origin (despite his American accent).

Tate was also a shuttle pilot called Dirgo on TNG ("Final Mission"), but that character is an early Michael Westmore humanoid "forehead alien". Bilby in DS9, though, definitely pays homage to Nick's human Aussie roots.

These two actors are certainly not the only Aussies to have worked on Star Trek, but Dame Judith Anderson (as Vulcan High Priestess T'Lar on ST III) and ex-Neighbours' Alan Dale (as Romulan Praetor Hiren in "Nemesis") both appeared on the silver screen in pointed latex ears!

Onya guys!

ST Magazine UK/Aust vs ST Magazine US

I've seen a few questions as to whether there are significant differences between the UK "Star Trek" magazine from Titan and the version that has now been made available to the US as a niche replacement for the US Official Fan Club's still-on-hiatus(?)/defunct "Star Trek Communicator".

I've always had a standing order for the US "Star Trek Communicator" from a local Australian comic collectibles shop, mainly because I've seen a lot of friends' mail-ordered subscription copies get badly damaged in the post. I've bought every issue since the small format, from the days leading up to ST IV, through its revamp for TNG, and until its final issue.

The Titan "Star Trek" magazine turns up in Australia on newsstands in the month following the UK release. It gets renumbered on the cover, following a relaunch of that magazine a few years ago, but I have tended to only pick up those issues with interesting articles.

The first US version of Titan's Star Trek (#1 SEPT/OCT) turned up at my comic collectibles shop (Kings Comics) last month so I put it on my standing order. The Australian version (#86 OCT/NOV; #128 UK) of the UK edition has only just hit Australian newsstands - the same week that US "Star Trek" #2 turned up on my standing order. Since I'd seen various inaccurate posts from people quoting page counts etc, and speculation about whether the wording of the US articles suffered any changes (none that I have noticed), I bought one so I could compare them satisfy myself that the content was identical.



Both versions have 98 pages. The main differences are size (the UK version is 2 centimetres taller and one centimetre wider, and has improved paper quality over the previous dull finish) and the placement, and sometimes wording, of the full-page glossy advertisements. The US magazine has a big "#1" in the Starfleet delta shield logo, while the UK mag reads "New look" instead. The one-sided pull-out poster, advertising the cover of Pocket Books' new "Ships of the Line" hardcover art book, is folded and stapled colour-side out for the US, but white-side out (and slightly larger) for the UK.

* Inside cover: "Lost" magazine ad (US version has different subscription details, of course, and a sample of alternate cover art)

* Inside back cover: US Diamond/Art Asylum's Kirk in command chair action figure vs UK "24" magazine

* Back cover: US "Star Trek: The Animated Series" on DVD vs UK "Stargate: SG1 & Atlantis" magazine.

Other differences in advertising pages:

* US Vulkon.com 40th anniversary convention vs UK "Dreamwatch" magazine

* "Battlestar Galactica" magazine (different sub details)

* US "24" magazine vs UK "Star Wars" magazine

* US "Stargate SG1 & Atlantis" magazine vs UK Titan "Star Trek" reprint collections of the DC Comics ST line

* US "Dreamwatch" magazine vs UK "Buffy & Angel" magazine

* US Titan magazines & books vs UK "Charmed" magazine

* US "Angel featuring Buffy" magazine vs UK subscription information for "Star Trek" magazine

* US Titan "Star Trek" reprint collections of the DC Comics ST line vs UK US Titan magazines & books

* US two-page mail-in ST readers' survey vs UK two-page "Tower of Commerce" mail order catalogue of Star Trek products (Note: the US version uses a Klingon teddy bear from the UK catalogue as an illustration for its readers' survey)

* US subscription information for "Star Trek" magazine vs UK "Star Trek" magazine back issues

* US "Next issue (ie. #2): 24 Oct" vs UK "Next issue: 12 Oct". (Note: the UK ad boasts that the next UK version of the mag will contain "Free 'Voyager' supplement", including interviews with Robert Duncan McNeill and Rick Berman, plus Tim Earls' 'Voyager' designs.) I only have the US #2 edition so far, and it has only 66 pages. While there is some commentary from Berman on the casting of Janeway within the main text, it does appear that the "free" UK supplements are NOT going to be a regular part of the US magazine. This may be Titan UK's way of ensure that its regular UK and European readers aren't tempted to order in the US version of the magazine from distributors of American product when they place their comic orders.

I'll be interested to see how many extra pages will be in the Aussie version of the UK edition - and which version I decide to make my regular purchase.

Captain's Log: Supplemental
Cool! Paul Simpson, incoming editor on the Titan "Star Trek" magazines, addressed the above blog entry over on Psi Phi

The truth about Efrosians

Can you tell I was procrastinating (from a different, more difficult, writing task?) :)

Hy'Rell, the Efrosian librarian of the Eternal Gallery and Archive,
announces that this old blog entry from 2006 has now become a Page, and has moved here!

The counter starts...

NaNoWriMo, the (Inter)National Novel Writing Month, starts today. I was having a wonderful dream, which featured the beeping of a mobile phone, only to awake at about 5.45 am to the sound of my mobile phone telling me the battery needed recharging. Hey, thanks phone!

So, I'm actually up early enough to write.

Here I am, just catching up with emails, the "Star Trek" bulletin boards, reading a few friends' blogs, having breakfast, making lunch for taking to work, a little "Puppy Milk" for the dog, feeding the birds, getting a coffee, time for a shower...

Mmmm. Procrastination is alive and well.

I also need to polish some late book reviews and post them off (reviews by email; the actual books by post) and type up the report on my current student teacher.

Now I have to write the start of my novel when I get home from work (and then after the staff dinner). Oh dear. Good start, eh?

Wallowing in the crucible

A "Star Trek" novel, "Crucible: McCoy: Provenance of Shadows" was my vacation reading of choice last week. 628 pages, on super slim paper to keep the chunkiness to a minimum, it was indeed an excellent selection!

I was staying with some old ST friends in Brisbane, in sunny Queensland. The sun was up at 5.15am every day, light streaming into my room. Nothing else to do but read, until the household was awake for breakfast. One of my hosts is also about to give birth to her first child and needed lots of naps, so I had David R George III's literary company, off and on, for a whole week. I got totally sucked into the universe that is "Star Trek: Crucible", greedily sneaking off for extra chapters at every opportunity.

The events stretch from the end of "The City on the Edge of Forever", one of the most popular TOS episodes, until several years after retired Admiral McCoy's visit to Picard's Enterprise in "Encounter at Farpoint" (the premiere episode of "The Next Generation"). Even though the "Crucible" trilogy purposely works in its own continuity, as regarding other ST novels, it seemed to me that David George purposely worded his description of the Enterprise's return from "Out there, thataway" (in ST:TMP) to include wiggle room for a recent and popular novel set in that time period, "Ex Machina".

That Filmation's animated ST series of the 70s (TAS) is so well referenced was a delight to me! Many more aspects than I expected: first names for (Paul) Bates and (Jimmy) Clayton, welcome cameo appearances by Randi Bryce and M'Ress the Caitian, and cheeky references to Mantilles, Dramia II, Edoans, Phylosians, Vedala, Aquan surgo-ops and even practical joking computers!

I'm very curious how much the upcoming "Spock" and "Kirk" instalments of this new trilogy will intersect the "McCoy" novel, and how much will focus on new events, and events barely hinted at in "McCoy". The three covers will make a triptych mural, too. A very cool 40th anniversary event!
Captain's Log, Supplemental: Too cool. Over on TrekBBS, David R George responded to my review thusly.

I've just spent the morning updating my Toon Trek pages to include all the "Crucible" TAS references.

Star Trek: The Not So Motionless Picture

A 'net friend from TrekBBS has the pleasure of providing introductions for the first four Star Trek movies at the Dryden Theatre, George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, this month. It is a series called "Star Trek: 40 Years into the Future" and they are showing 35mm prints for all four films, including a crisp new version of ST II that was prepared for the DVD release.


"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" aliens discuss their cameo appearances in "Ex Machina", a recent novel sequel to the movie by Christopher L. Bennett

It was the pre-publicity for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (aka TMP) that made me into an avid ST fan, way back in December 1979. The nightly newspaper here in Sydney carried a week of facinating updates from the set by Aussie journalist, James Oram, who did interviews and observations during filming. It made me recall the animated Star Trek series (TAS), which played in colour reruns on "The Super Flying Fun Show" breakfast television, with Miss Marilyn! I hadn't really seen much of the original live-action series (TOS). The clincher was an intriguing review made by a school friend at my 21st birthday party. He'd just been to the Australian gala premiere of TMP - the old marble and art deco Paramount cinema had been populated by wacky fans in costume, who applauded all the opening credits and each actor's first scene - and it all really intrigued me.

Within a few weeks, I'd found the monthly screenings of TOS episodes on the big screen at ANZAC House, and the existence of the Sydney-based Star Trek Fan Club (the now defunct Astrex). By 1983 I was Astrex's president - and a lifetime of fannish activities has followed.

My contribution to Jared's speech, being delivered tonight, I understand, says that "... if you enjoy the film, the novelization is an excellent source of additional scenes that were originally envisioned as being part of the script. Indeed, the novelization was written by Gene Roddenberry himself, based on the script by Harold Livingston..."

Additionally, "Nichelle Nichols, who plays Uhura, assumed that she would have her character's customary earpiece as a prop for the film, but the propmasters had not anticipated that and had not created a new one for her to use. On Nichols' first day of filming, the propmasters ended up going through the boxes of props from the series and actually found one of the earpieces..." Thus, it was the only prop used on both the TV series and the film. By ST II, the prop guys had made a new one for her to use.

How amazing that we are still watching and discussing TMP in 2006. Break a leg, Jared! Wish I could be there.