There’s almost nothing at all I can say about this video that will be better than watching it for yourself.
It’s the Muppets. Performing Queen’s famous song, Bohemian Rhapsody. Do you need more? No? Good, because other than typing the word “awesome!” a hundred times, then maybe typing it a hundred more, I really don’t have anything useful to add.
Here you go:
I think I’ve been up front about this in the past but I’m not really a Star Trek fan. Well, that’s not true, exactly. What it is is this: I’ve never really watched the shows.
Oh, I watched the original shows, as reruns with my dad, when I was a kid. And again, recently, with the HD re-releases, by way of iTunes. And I saw that not-nearly-as-awful-as-everyone-says-but-still-pretty-fucking-dull Star Trek: The Motion Picture in its original theatrical release (and enjoyed a nice, deep slumber).
I believe I’ve seen the rest of the movies, up through First Contact, in the theater, as well.
I never watched Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager or Generations (that’s all of them, right?). Which is to say, I might have been in a room when they were on, but I didn’t *watch* them — which is to say, *follow* them.
But still, I like Star Trek. I think the original crew is the best. I love the fact that, culturally, James T. Kirk has sort of become . . . well, almost a mythological figure. You can say, “Captain Kirk” and people know what you’re talking about, same as if you’d said Dracula or Superman or Hercules.
Which is to say, they’d know vaguely what you’re talking about. They’d be aware that Captain Kirk had a space ship and they’d know about Spock’s ears and they’d know some other stuff — tribbles, Kahn, hot green alien girls.
Same as they might know Dracula’s name but not that the “fearless vampire hunters” are Harker, Godalming, Seward and Van Helsing. Superman fights Lex Luthor and maybe they know that, but they probably don’t know about other, lesser-known villains. Hercules? Maybe they think of Lou Ferigno or (gasp!) Kevin Sorbo, but do they know in the original myth, he brutally murdered his wife (while, I believe, under another god’s control, but what can you do, right)?
So: Captain Kirk. James Tiberius Kirk. A part of the language. I really dig that, the notion of that. It’s something (almost) from my lifetime that could just live on with us, as a people, forever. A hundred years from now, will future astronauts jokingly call their commander, “Captain Kirk”? Maybe.
All this is preamble for the following. It’s the original scene, as written but never (so far as I know) filmed, from J.J. Abrams’ recent Star Trek movie. I’d heard about it, and honestly, reading it, God, I wished they’d filmed it. It would have been just the barest taste of William Shatner. Just enough to make folks have little geekgasms. Not too much — and in no real context — to overshadow the new cast.
And it would have tied things together beautifully.
So, here you go, first, the link: Linky-Poo.
And here, in case it gets pulled, or something, the quote in full. Obviously, if you haven’t seen the film . . . well, what are you waiting for? The thing came out on DVD and Blu-Ray last Tuesday. Get with it.
Here you go:
This begins during the scene where Spock Prime meets Quinto’s Spock at the end of the film:
SPOCK PRIME
Then I ask that you do yourself a favor... put away logic, and do what feels right. The world you’ve inherited lives in the shadow of incalculable devastation... but there’s no reason you must face it alone.
And from around his neck, he removes the PENDANT that until now, we’ve only caught glimpses of. Places it on the table beside his younger self. The feeling in his eyes is profound...
SPOCK PRIME (CONT’D)
This was a gift to me. Representing...a dream. One we were unable to fulfill. (softly) The way you can now. And moves to the door.
Stops. Offers the VULCAN SALUTE:
SPOCK PRIME (CONT’D)
As my customary farewell would appear oddly self serving, I will simply say...good luck.
Their eyes hold. Spock turns, disappearing into the corridor. Young Spock stares at the empty doorway a beat, his mind a jumble of thoughts. Looks to the pendant... and realizes it’s a HOLO-EMITTER. After considering a beat, he hits an activation button and a MOVING HOLOGRAPHIC MESSAGE materializes before him:
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK. WILLIAM SHATNER. As always, brash, wry, confident -- and SINGING:
KIRK/ SHATNER
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...(stops, grins) I know I know, it’s illogical to celebrate something you had nothing to do with, but I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you on your appointment to the ambassadorship so I thought I’d seize the occasion... Bravo, Spock -- they tell me your first mission may take you away for awhile, so I’ll be the first to wish you luck... and to say... (beat, emotional) I miss you, old friend...
And we’re PUSHING IN on Young Spock, taking in the image of Kirk’s future self, the message, but above all -- the clear, unquestionable friendship these two men had...
INT. CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS
As Spock Prime walks off down the corridor, he passes right by a man conferring with a nurse -- the man pauses, turns... it’s SAREK. Suddenly overcome by a feeling that the stranger who’s just passed him is... oddly familiar.
KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I suppose I’d always imagined us...outgrowing Starfleet together. Watching life swing us into our Emeritus years...
INT. STARBASE ONE – HANGAR – ETERNAL NIGHT
MUSIC BUILDING -- glass walls reveal THE ENTERPRISE at dock, UTILITY CRAFTS floating around it, repairing. Standing at attention in rows, THE ENTERPRISE CREW -- over four hundred of them wearing DRESS UNIFORMS -- TRACK DOWN the faces, all proud:
KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I look around at the new cadets now and can’t help thinking... has it really been so long? Wasn’t it only yesterday we stepped onto the Enterprise as boys? That I had to prove to the crew I deserved command... and their respect?
And we STOP ON YOUNG KIRK. Composed, focused, proud. A man. And to every fan’s delight, finally wearing his YELLOW SHIRT. The FEDERATION COMMANDANT stands at a podium:
COMMANDANT
This assembly calls Captain James Tiberius Kirk...
Kirk breaks from formation, pivots, marches down the hangar -- past UHURA... SULU... CHEKOV... SCOTTY. All Beaming. Notably absent, is Spock. Kirk ascends the stairs, snaps to attention:
COMMANDANT (CONT’D)
Your inspirational valor and supreme dedication to your comrades are in keeping with the highest traditions of service and reflect utmost credit to yourself, your crew, and the Federation. By Starfleet Order 28455, you are hereby directed to report to Commanding Officer, USS Enterprise, for duty as his relief.
Kirk turns. Walks to... PIKE. In a wheelchair now, wearing an ADMIRAL’S UNIFORM. Overnight, his hair’s turned totally grey -- but despite his trauma, his pride’s overwhelming. They SALUTE each other:
KIRK
I relieve you, Sir.
PIKE
... I am relieved.
He opens a BOX in his lap -- glorious in repose, a MEDAL:
PIKE (CONT’D)
And as Fleet Admiral, for your... unique solution to the Kobayashi Maru, it’s my honor to award you with a commendation for original thinking.
Pike containing a smirk, pins the medal to Kirk’s chest...
PIKE (CONT’D)
(a touch choked) Congratulations, Captain.
KIRK
Thank you, Sir.
Kirk turns to the crowd. Eyes shining. WILD APPLAUSE. OUR MUSIC SOARS. Bones leans in to Sulu, rolling his eyes:
BONES
... Same ship, different day.
As Kirk rejoins his crew for hugs and congratulations, we go to the BACK of the hangar... SPOCK PRIME. Watching. Moved beyond words. He turns and leaves them to it... as he goes...
KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I know what you’d say -- `It’s their turn now, Jim...’ And of course you’re right... but it got me thinking:
INT. STARFLEET HOSPITAL – EARTH – DAY
Our montage comes full circle as we END on Kirk’s transmission:
KIRK/SHATNER
Who’s to say we can’t go one more round? By the last tally, only twenty five percent of the galaxy’s been chartered...I’d call that negligent. Criminal even -- an invitation. You once said being a starship captain was my first, best destiny... if that’s true, then yours is to be by my side. If there’s any true logic to the universe...we’ll end up on that bridge again someday.
Stops, grins. Because this is the part he needs to say most...
KIRK
Admit it, Spock. For people like us, the journey itself... is home.
Young Spock’s face. Lost in feelings that flood through him.
This feels like one of those posts that doesn’t really need to exist. What happened, after all, anything good? Anything interesting or noteworthy?
Well, not really. I mean, sort of, but I’m not 100% exactly what it is that I’ve done here and what the implications of it may or may not be.
Listen: if this doesn’t get at least marginally interesting, I won’t post it. So, if you’re reading this then — one some level, at least — there may be something worth reading going on here.
Tonight I sat down to work on something different. Just a short story, something I’ve been kicking around a while. The issue (we never say “problem”, we say “issue”) is that I know what the story is, I just haven’t sorted out how to exactly go about it. Honestly, there’s not much story there. I’d be writing it more as an exercise than anything else and, as such, it hasn’t exactly been lighting my world on fire.
But, I figured I needed to change gears slightly. With Animals, I’ve been seriously considering junking the last two chapters (read: argh) and doing things differently. The issue (ah ha) is that I’m not SURE if this is something I want to do or not. I very much like the two chapters in question but I’m starting to feel they may not be *right* for what I need them doing.
So, yes, you’re reading that right: I love what they do and how they do it, I’m just not sure if I, um, love them enough.
If this were high school, the chapters would dump me for someone a little better organized. So it goes.
I worked on the short story, tentatively named, Leaving The Trees. I got some nice work done, a good start and all that (not like I haven’t started it before), and then I got an itch to try something new.
It’s, well, it’s something that’s been on my mind a lot lately.
“Self,” I said. “Maybe we should take a crack at Chapter One again.”
Yes, again, you’re reading that right. Second Draft. Back to the beginning. Heaven help us, worlds without end.
I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking.
But, I did it. I went back, opened a new document, copy/pasted some text so I didn’t have to redo all the formatting the way I like it, and I set to work.
I reworked two sections from the first chapter. It’s all I dare do without more of a concrete plan for where I want to go. The first section, about four hundred words, offers a nice introduction to Galen and Kara. The second section starts the ball rolling (though in a very unassuming fashion).
So, now what?
Well, I could sully forth and knock that last chapter and the epilogue out. Don’t have to be “right”, just have to exist.
Or, I could keep rolling on the Second Draft. What I’d need to be doing is chopping the first two chapters of the First Draft — together about 20,000 words — and paring that down to about 6,000 words total.
No, really.
I’ll be doing this a lot, if I’m really starting in on the Second Draft. I fully expect the 100,000 words I have right now to lose a lot of weight between now and typing THE END. The beginning of the book is where I see a lot of that cutting coming from.
Essentially, I’m tossing a bunch of stuff I was doing, back when I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Some will only be adjusted or revised (as I did tonight). Some will be discarded whole-cloth. Some will be completely new.
Most of what I’m doing is simplifying. Is it really necessary for the guy getting on Galen’s nerves at the start of Chapter One to fall down and have coffee spilled on him? Probably not. It’s satisfying as hell and — yes — does actually work as an Official, Licensed Plot Point but . . . well, it’s too clunky.
So, cutting and rewriting and cutting some more. Merciless cutting.
I will also say that Painted Ocean has been on my mind a lot lately. Sorry, did I say a lot? I meant to say A LOT.
I think I know how to start the book, which means I know how the first chapter goes. I need to talk to some folks who know about submarines and the navy before I’d go past that point, but I may have a bead on that sort of thing already.
Failing expert help, I’ll just watch Crimson Tide, The Hunt for Red October and Down Periscope a few dozen times each.
I will be ready.
That’s where I am, though. Add to that a vague sense of guilt over skipping National Novel Writing Month and I’m just happy I spent the night writing something. Writing something. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
I don’t tend to gush about my favorite authors and I try to avoid coming across as a fanboy when something new comes out, or when I spot something interesting from one of them. It’s only partly purposeful. I suppose I think there are enough other folks out there going on and on, and really, it just never feels dignified to lose my head, no matter how good someone’s new book may be.
This, however, I’m going to gush over. It’s that cool. More, as I read it, it sort of blew my mind. It’s not a new book, or a movie being made into a book. It’s a letter. Yup, that’s it. Just a letter, forwarded to me from a friend up in the Great White North because, I’m sure, he knew I’d dig it.
It’s a letter from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. written to his family in May of 1945. A letter written to (a) let them know he wasn’t dead, and to (b) relate, in brief, his experiences since being taken prisoner by the German army in December of 1944.
Fans of Vonnegut will either know already, or realize as they read the letter, that these experiences formed the basis for one of his keystone books, Slaughterhouse Five.
Still, reading these three pages holds an almost transformative power. First, a Vonnegut fan will recognize the author’s signature tone and voice. Referring to the Germans as “the supermen” or describing how “the Russians are crazy about Americans”, I found I was laughing in spite of myself.
Secondly, you can see the power in his words. “They beat me up a little.” he says, describing the German guards’ reaction to his threatening them when the refused to improve the food and conditions of their prisoners. No melodrama here. No harps and violins. Just Kurt Vonnegut (I always want to hold back the “Jr.”, though I know that’s his full name — odd), doing what he did best; telling a story in his own absolutely unique fashion.
I’ve purposely held off on the link until the end of this post. This is because I wanted to get my thoughts out and I know that some folks — if there are really “some folks” reading this silly blog — tend to click the link and promise themselves they’ll come back. I don’t think my words hold any particular import here. There’s really nothing I can write that’s going to overshadow Vonnegut’s words from nearly sixty-five years ago.
Still, I wanted to try and say something. I tend to glut myself on Vonnegut’s books, re-consuming them in a frenzy every couple years or so, finding new things to laugh and be touched by each time. These three pages (which I’m going to copy/paste and save, lest they be lost to the capriciousness of the internet gods) tell a succinct, moving story. I don’t know enough about Vonnegut’s life to know how much writing he’d done prior to this letter. If he’d spent hours crouching with a pencil over a stolen pad of paper, writing whatever came to his mind; if he waited until later in life to give voice to a long dormant muse.
What we do see here is a gifted writer on the back end of an incredible experience, working to tell his story without either panicking his loved ones or inflating himself and his role in surviving his ordeal. Probably his family was used to reading his letters — this was old hat to them. Probably they didn’t digest much on their first reading other than, “Kurt is alive and coming home.”
Really, that’s the most extraordinary part of this. Kurt is alive and coming home.
Here is the link:
A slow, but good, night of writing. Maybe 600 or 800 words, and I feel I earned every one of them.
Where I’m at right now is the penultimate (nice word) chapter in the book. Essentially, I need to get from Point A to Point B one more time (I hope).
Previous to tonight, I’ve been going in one direction towards accomplishing that goal. Tonight, hey, figured I’d try something new.
I think it worked.
I’ll take a fresh look tomorrow and see what I think. I *think* it’s good, and I *think* it gets a lot of things done without smacking you over the head with what it’s trying to get done. If I’m right, that’d be a very, very good thing.
I’m forcing myself to slow down and pick my words with great care right now. In the finished version of this book — after 20,000 to 40,000 MS words have been removed, this story needs to be completely airtight. Every word, every phrase, has to have meaning. This is true, I feel, for any well-written book, but I’ve become especially aware of it now.
As much of an educational experience writing this has been, editing it is going to be, ten-fold, if not more.
I’m really looking forward to it, and seeing that “final” manuscript as it will exist when I finally decide that this, right here, stacked up on my desk, *this* is the story I’ve been looking to tell.
An interesting (and, obviously, late) night of writing for me today.
I got started late, as we had people over playing boardgames this afternoon. We played three different games, I think, and the third one, Battlestar Galactica (with the new, Pegasus expansion) went until nearly nine o’clock at night.
Yowza.
We cleaned up a bit, I microwaved some leftovers and then, probably about eleven or so, I sat down to write.
It was a bit of a slow start.
Well, okay, that’s not fair. It wasn’t exactly a “slow start” — I started, I wrote, I rather enjoyed myself. About 800 words later, I had a neat little scene that did a lot of things I was looking to do.
Problem is, it was too cutesy. Too clever. Too self-conscious. Its the kind of scene that would only happen if it was a scene in a book.
So: gone. Buh-leeted.
I was able to salvage a handful of paragraphs, so I took those and went back to the drawing board. I thought about what I did that I’d enjoyed and how it didn’t work. I thought about how much of it didn’t work. Not because it was bad but because it was . . . is trite the right word? Maybe. It was obvious. It was weak. It might have been entertaining, but it needed to be more.
What I’ve got now, I think I like a lot more. Less artificial dialog. Less posturing. It’s lean and mean and it puts me in a nice place to pick things up tomorrow night.
So, that’s a good thing. Of course, it’s also ten after two in the morning (and remember, with daylight savings, that’s ten after THREE in the morning — thank goodness tomorrow I can get up — functionally — at seven in the morning) and that’s not such a good thing. I hate started the week out sleepy, but I’d hate more if I got a good night’s sleep but didn’t get any good work done.
This was for Chapter Thirteen. I didn’t write yesterday (Saturday) but I did write about two pages of notes on how I’m going to close this chapter out and move to Fourteen. A lot of what I came up with is stuff I should have thought of before. Needed to take a step back.
I’m hoping I’m in a good place here. It feels like I am. If it was only ten or even eleven at night, I might put a few more hours in and see where they take me.
Oh, and as it is, officially, November, I am, officially, skipping National Novel Writing Month for 2009. I’m more than a little upset about this. I’ve done it (and won) the last two years, and was sort of looking forward to the awesome grind that is NaNoWriMo for a third year.
I don’t want to derail where I am with this book, though. And I will, I definitely will, if I try to have my cake and eat it, too. I will satisfy myself, then, with making a nice donation and making sure I’m as productive as I can be with this month I’m gifting to myself.
Also, I’ll encourage the few folks I know in my persona life who ARE partaking this year. It’s not the same as doing it myself but for most of them, it’s their first shot at it.
I wish them all luck. I hope we ALL have a good, word-filled month.