br-549 or ncc-1701

A misunderstanding on my part—given days to ferment and fester before a little research disabused me of it, led me to believe that the networks had originally canceled the first iteration of Star Trek in 1969, before the crew had the chance to even fulfill their five year mission, for undisclosed reasons since not all allegory goes without controversy and filled that time-slot with Hee Haw. I was mistaken but not before I went as far as imagining how loyal-viewers might have comforted themselves and imagined that the Enterprise was having another encounter with the Mirror Universe, with helmsman Lieutenant Junior Samples and First Officer Minnie Pearl.  The reality behind the reason not to renew the series was in actuality over more mundane problems with the programming line-up of NBC and switching the show’s slot and many liberties were indeed afforded to the genre to address contemporary issues. Fans had already saved the show before from oblivion with a letter-writing campaign but a following attempt failed to persuade executives a second time. Perhaps the Moon Landing and the real promise that held was as good a cue as any to gracefully bow-out and had the series continued, perhaps it would not have been there for following generations in the way it has been, nor mobilised and inspired legions of fans and television might be loath to indulge re-runs and syndication.
It turns out that Hee Haw (also in 1969)—which I don’t recall at all except for the donkey animation and a few scattered images—did in fact come in to being rather hastily as a clone of one of those anodyne, niche (though surely pitched as family-friendly) programmes like Lawrence Welk, Laugh-In and Liberace with CBS’ decision to pull the subversive and unapologetic Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour for outspoken guests and questioning Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to escalate the stakes in Vietnam, as the need for the founder of the Great Society to placate his chicken-hawk critics in Washington and prove his manhood.

mason-dixon oder deutsch-deutsche grenze

Having lived in Germany for an extended period, I have found it’s impossible to forget that certain canopy of history whose partition lasted up until a quarter-of-a-century ago with the division between East and West and the innerdeutsche Grenze.  I knew such separation-anxieties were hardly unique and reunification is certainly still pending for some, however, it was not until a recent trip to the Deep South in America did I appreciate how real some abolished borders can yet be. Though circumstances were very different and more distant history than what partitioned Germany and Europe, quite a lot of sentiment over the US Civil War (called alternatively the War of Northern Aggression) lingers.
It is not only in the monuments that extol rebellion or the city hall of Macon, Georgia that was for a time the capitol of the Confederate States of America—for history is, no matter how inconvenient or painful should not be sequestered and compartmentalised—but more immediately and undiluted by time in attitudes that have changed little since the cease-fire. Not that it is not getting better and not that we ought to resign ourselves to the patience of generational strife and contend with prejudices with an unnatural longevity necessarily for any parallel line-in-the-sand, it’s just that resistance to change can sometimes be glacially stubborn and there are few equipped to accept it at any pace.

fearbook

Dangerous Minds has a features an excellent profile on a magazine whose run in the late1950s and 1960s appealed to a certain niche readership and had quite a devoted following. The periodical Famous Monsters of Filmland not only showcased the distinctively creepy artwork of Basil Gogos on the cover but also invites a discussion on such cult phenomena since fandom is always something well-documented for those wanting to know more or to rediscover what was formerly frowned on as a poor investment of time and energy, unlike say Cat Fancy.

uncanny gulch

H introduced me to this fun but slightly unsettling Chinese app called myidol. One takes a shapshot of one’s face and the app (all in Chinese but intuitive and guiding enough to figure out—though a bit offputting since one is not exactly sure what one is consenting to, like most of the things on this platform) and allows one to create a three-dimensional paper-doll avatar that one can put in miniature animated adventures, like a cowboy in a Wild West shootout, motorcycle daredevil, cheerleader, etc. The rendering is seamless and an accurate reflection—the character coming across as a Voltron pilot.