Last summer, I interviewed Steve Howe, Chris Squire, and Alan White of Yes in our JBL Theater at the museum. They had just flown in from a show in Las Vegas and seemed pretty tired, but when they got in front of the crowd, they turned it up to 11! Here’s a few clips from the night.
What’s up with the capes?
Chris Squire on his first encounter with Hendrix
-Jacob
A post by Brooks entitled “Zombies: Destruction and Corruption” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Jasen entitled “Independence Day” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Jacob entitled “Oh, the Worlds We’ll See on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Jacob entitled “Dexter and My Moral Quandry” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Jasen entitled “Rock Band Royale” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Brooks entitled “The coming revolution in personal manufacturing and decorative arts–we’re all designers now” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
A post by Christina Orr-Cahall entitled “Hey, baby, wake up. Come and dance with me.” on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
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A post by Christina Orr-Cahall on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
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A post by Brooks on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
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Daniel's journal from "The Constant"
Today at Seattle’s music and arts festival Bumbershoot, three writer/producers of Lost announced that when the show finishes its sixth and last season next year, not every skull-scratching, mind-blowing, jaw-gaping-mouth-breathing mystery will be answered.
This is a good thing.
As executive producer Carlton Cuse explained, sometimes not knowing the whole story is more interesting and more fulfilling than knowing, and he wisely offered Star Wars’ midi-chlorians as an example. What gives mysteries their power is, well, how mysterious they are, and taking that away can take away the fun. So not everything on Lost will be made clear, but Cuse (along with executive producers Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz) said that the creative team does have a road map of what they think must be explained. My question is, are the things I desperately need explained the things that the writers want to explain? I damn well hope so.
Other tidbits from the panel, some of which may be outright lies, include:
—Brooks
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“Now that time has given us some perspective on his work, I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.” – Stephen King
Let’s talk about Lovecraft.
During his lifetime, American author H.P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937) was not well-known outside of the pages of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, but his stories and creations have become some of the most enduring in horror. A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft was a child prodigy gifted in poetry and prose, but he suffered from isolation, frequent illness and depression. Similar afflictions caused the eventual deaths of both his parents.
Despite being a recluse, Lovecraft was a prolific writer of letters, and as a member of the United Amateur Press Association beginning in the 1910s, he cultivated friendships with Clark Ashton Smith (star Weird Tales author), Robert E. Howard (creator of the Conan the Barbarian stories, 1932 – 1936), and later, Robert Bloch (author of Psycho, 1959). Over the last two decades of his life, Lovecraft would become one of the leading contributors to Weird Tales and, despite his utter poverty and lack of renown in the greater world of literature, he indelibly transformed horror – away from the castles and forests of the Gothic tradition and toward a more modern conception that reflected 20th century fears.
Lovecraft was able to combine established elements of horror with the advances in technology and growing universal awareness that were more the mandate of science fiction. Eschewing science fiction’s optimism at the mastery of our world and beyond, Lovecraft created a new, contemporary brand of horror – “Cosmic Horror” – underlining the utter insignificance of humanity in relation to the immensity of the universe or the vast potential of the mind. Humanity’s journey into the far reaches of inner or outer space was not something to be celebrated, but rather to be feared. Some knowledge was never meant to be uncovered, and once learned, threatened to break the frail human shell. Lovecraft’s very real and personal ethos about existence can be summed up with the beginning of his landmark 1928 story “The Call of Cthulhu”:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
With this statement, Lovecraft struck a universal chord that aches like a rotten tooth – the terrifying intimation that we are not in control of our destinies and our world; we are utterly insignificant, uncared-for, alone. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, loosely constructed within his various published stories, posits a pantheon of extra-dimensional, omnipotent beings who often use Earth as a playground. These entities, most prominently the tentacular, bat-winged Cthulhu, are so incomprehensibly powerful that the human psyche withers upon encounter. Confrontations, which invariably lead to the madness and death of the humans involved, often involve arcane books of power, such as the Necronomicon, as well as eerie New England locales, most prominently the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, home to Lovecraft’s fabled Miskatonic University.
Lovecraft encouraged his friends and contemporaries to add elements to his Mythos, a practice which has continued after his death – creating what has become a massive shared universe, spanning thousands of works of literature, television, film, music, role-playing games, and other media, as well as creators including author Umberto Eco (Foucault’s Pendulum, 1988), metal band Metallica (“The Call of Ktulu,” 1984, and “The Thing That Should Not Be,” 1986), author Stephen King (“Jerusalem’s Lot,” 1978), comic book artist Mike Mignola (“Hellboy,” 1993 to present), and director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, 1982).
Ia! Ia! Cthluhu fhtagn!
-Jacob
A post by Jasen on seattlepi.com’s City Brights section.
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Recently I saw Moon with Sam Rockwell and directed by “Zowie Bowie” Duncan Jones. I had been hearing all this babble about “it’ll make you think for days” and “best sci-fi movie since 2001: A Space Odyssey.” And I thought it was great. Beautiful semi-retro-future goodness. Rockwell and Gerty the moonbase computer/robot thingy were fantastic. But it didn’t really make me think for days.
I’m sure it’s a useless gripe, but it bugs me when plots in movies/novels/etc. are touted as “unique” or “mind-blowing” or “a fresh new look at blah blah blah,” when the plots are almost always as old as the hills. The big secret scenario in Moon (sorry – no spoilers) is a great example. As was the plot of The DaVinci Code – it’s as if people had never read a conspiracy or “secret history” story before. And in the end, that’s probably the issue. My issue, really, with the long course of cultural assimilation. What seems familiar as dirt to me as a huge genre dork seems new and fresh when it percolates, ages later, up to the mainstream.
I suppose I should be happy at how much science fiction, fantasy, etc. has influenced wider culture – I do, after all, get paid to be a big nerd now. How awesome is that?
-Jacob
I’m happy to see the resurrection, reimagining, and literal rejuvenation of the Star Trek franchise that J.J. Abrams’ 2009 film has produced. Press and filmgoers have praised the new Star Trek thoroughly (but perhaps none more lovingly than The Onion), and I don’t need to add to that cascade. What particularly pleases me is that many people who never watched the original television series are now taking a look and enjoying that show despite a 40-year gulf of political change and special effects innovation. The original Star Trek has found a new audience, and that new audience has four seasons of classic television to feast on.
Stop. I know what you’re thinking: Star Trek lasted only three seasons and I, therefore, am an idiot. But have you forgotten the Saturday morning animated Star Trek that aired in 1973-1974? Well before Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gene Roddenberry created this extension to the original series that continued the adventures of Captain Kirk & Co. The animated series brought back Roddenberry as producer and writer, also many other veteran Star Trek writers and the entire original cast save Walter Koenig (Koenig’s character, Chekov, was replaced by a three-armed alien named Arex). A number of the episodes are direct sequels to original series tales, such as “More Tribbles, More Troubles” and “Mudd’s Passion.” Although the show was ostensibly aimed at kids, Roddenberry didn’t dumb it down, but continued to use this brightly-colored space opera to explore themes of race, gender relations, first contact, war, etc.
Star Trek: The Animated Series
In fact I’ll argue that the animated series managed to out-Trek the original Star Trek in a number of ways, even though the episodes were only half an hour long. Animation gave Roddenberry an unlimited special effects budget, so he could show off wonders such as a 300 million-year-old starship that looks like a web of plant pods, or Vulcan cities glowing against the night sky. The show took greater advantage of the cast members’ talents. James Doohan, for example, who played Mister Scott, was a masterful voice actor and played a variety of human and alien roles—sometimes four in one episode. And the show’s theme by Norm Prescott and Ray Ellis evokes the same sweeping energy as the original.
So if you’re craving more Star Trek, grab your PJs, pour a bowl of Lucky Charms and have at it.
But first, watch this brilliant mashup of the show with William Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s “Common People.”
-Brooks
