Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Data must convince stubborn humans to evacuate an unauthorized colony in Sheliak territory. Meanwhile, Picard must bargain with the legalistic Sheliaks for more time. After a teaser shows Data second-guessing his creative abilities, the main plot follows him as he first tries reason, then rhetoric, then a phaser to…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. The life’s work of an eminent astrophysicist is threatened when Wesley accidentally creates a civilization of microscopic beings. For a school project. The rumpled Dr. Stubbs is friendly enough to Wesley, but he lacks the devoted female companion that Star Trek often gives its male scientific geniuses, so his…
Cherry, the upper-class go-between spanning the worlds of the greasers and the Socs, is played by Carolyn Jerz, last seen at the New Hazlett as the leading lady/gentleman of Prime Stage’s Twelfth Night. Jerz radiates the kind of intense, poised charisma we associate with old Hollywood, and she imbues the sensitive, ambivalent Cherry with so much…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. After routine establishing shots we open with grumpy Riker slouching in a puddle, reporting that something unseen jabbed him in the leg. That’s the most creative bit of storytelling in the episode, other than some decent camerawork as we linger on various not-all-that-impressive props. The script is budget-friendly tribble…
Four sold out matinees this coming week. Haven’t seen it yet myself. (Nabbed photo from phgintheround’s Instagram.)
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. As part of Starfleet’s response to the Borg threat, Riker refits an 8o-year-old derelict to face the Enterprise in a wargame. Overseeing the simulation is Kolrami, a waddling oddity who takes a disliking to Riker and crushes him in a social game. Pulaski goads Data into challenging Kolrami to…
Traditional journalism aims for neutrality. My social media feed includes voices attacking journalists for for unfairly criticizing a president they support, and voices attacking journalists for uncritically repeating what the president says. But part of journalism does include sharing opinions (in editorials, roundtables, etc.). And part of journalism does call for neutrally reporting what newsmakers…
O tea, O moistened herb! Mug-harbored, Spouse-delivered Steaming under the canopy of a spare shirt. O essence, Inhaled (so that’s what breathing is… now I remember) Consumed (so that’s what swallowing is… now I remember), Now you are gone, But your goodness endures.
A Chinese media personality with over half a million followers reports on the Coronavirus outbreak from inside Wuhan. Gripping audio news reporting. What happens when a Chinese man—just a guy, not a journalist or dissident—decides to go to Wuhan and investigate the country’s response to coronavirus? Reporter Jiayang Fan brings us the story.
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Susie Paxton, who appeared as the Vulcan Dr. Selar in a Season One episode, shows off her comic timing as the half-human, half-Klingon K’Ehleyr, who turns out to have a history with Worf. K’Ehleyr was sent aboard the Enterprise to intercept the T’Ong, a Klingon sleeper ship. Everyone expects…
(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.) Troi’s eccentric mother Lwaxana returns for another comedy of manners, this time with full ambassadorial status and also on the prowl for a new human partner. Data and Picard mildly scold Wesley for saying a pair of alien ambassadors are “rather strange-looking.” and a bit later Picard tsk-tsks his…
(Rewatching Star Trek: TNG after a 20-year break.) A distress beacon leads the Enterprise to a colony of red-headed bumpkins who bring their farm animals, spinning wheels, and a still aboard. A few plot twists later, the smooth-talking, flask-swigging colony leader named O’Dell has occasion to say, “Send in the clones.” (I am not kidding.)…
The arts are vital to our lives as humans. And if one entered the cavernous arena suspecting that 18,000 teenagers might view this as class-trip goof-around time, those suspicions evaporated with the extinguishing of the house lights. The students from Queens and Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island laughed with the actors playing the…
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who held elected offices in Baltimore for two decades and was elevated by voters to lead the city following the upheaval of 2015, was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for a fraud scheme involving a children’s book series. | Pugh’s political fall began in March when The Baltimore…
A lawyer and hobbyist musician collaborated with a computer programmer to generate every possible 12-note melody in the key of C. The final compilation includes 68.7 billion melodic combinations, which the pair uploaded to the Internet Archive through a Create Commons Zero license, meaning they reserve no rights of ownership to any of them.…
My daughter Carolyn plays Cherry in Prime Stage’s production of The Outsiders (Mar 6-15). Because Prime Stage works to incorporate the curriculum of local schools, each production contains a student matinee performance, allowing the students to connect more deeply to their school readings through theater. Prime Stage also seeks to bring each work of literature…
I’m working with more complex materials, including a lace tablecloth, horrid vinyl chairs, and stainless steel details for my villain’s lair. I need some kind of shaded glass panels under the railing (which seems to be floating on a too-perfectly transparent material). I rather like the two variations of the couch. The upholstering is a…
In February 2000, I was blogging about The 1995 Walter Sorrels hypertext story “The Heist“ The “Instant Muse Poetry Generator“ A London Metropolitan police raid on a Kurdish community theater group rehearsing a Harold Pinter play about the persecution of Kurds The number of active weblogs increasing from 50 to 500 in the past year…
My 13-year-old recently approached me at bedtime, a worried look on his face. “Is there going to be a draft for World War III?” he asked sheepishly…. He showed me thousands of videos kids had made. Most were meant to be satirical, I think, about being drafted. A quick search of the hashtag #WWIII showed…