Go Pedagogical or Don’t Go at All.

It’s been almost a week since my employer’s parent company informed us that our entire division’s services would no longer be required after February. I was late to the announcement, having been trapped on a motionless PATH train when it began, but I can’t say it was surprising given how compromised our sector (educational services) and our country were made by deregulated banks and short-sighted Washington leadership. The writing had been on the walls long enough for folks to see that it had not been written in dry-erase marker.

***

It was a little over seven years ago that I first signed on full-time at Kaplan K12, having previously temped and freelanced for an unsettlingly long period. I came in as a production artist. Shortly after, as the organization grew large enough to require almost continuous redefinition of structure and process, I became one of the company’s first graphic designers.

The nature of the work suited me in much the same way that my Creative Director Mike Young has described in his own account of this moment in our lives. The rigor required by the work’s content drove a great deal of my attempts to improve how well our information design communicated pedagogy and learning techniques to our customers in clear, easy-to-use form. We iterated and polished the hell out of almost every book. Concomitant praise from customers vindicated that effort.

Kaplan K12 was not a place engaged in the vapid struggle to sell ephemera, intoxicants, disinformation, or luxury playthings. Kaplan K12 was a private-sector attempt to fill a horrendous nationwide curricular gap, which we did one product at a time with careful construction and attention to detail. Our curriculum developers, production, editorial, creatives, and support services constituted a generally excellent collection of intelligence, cultural awareness, and steadfast exactitude. No slack jaws here. I will very much miss working alongside these folks, and I hope they all land safely.

***

Reactions here this past week have been subdued. If folks are scared, they’re wearing it well. Our best and brightest are all too aware of their status as categorical casualties of the nation’s waning respect for literacy. Kaplan was a refuge for exiles from that corrosion, many of them former public school teachers. I’m something of a refugee as well, having spent my seven years here primarily in print publishing. Other skills must now be polished off or acquired, and they will be.

My primary concerns right now are over medical coverage, the middle-class’ apocalyptic Horseman, but I’m fortunate to have a bit of other work. It’s not an immediate prospect for a full-time job with benefits, but considering, I have more optimism about my own fate than I expected to.

I have been told that at least one of the products I designed will continue to be sold and supported for a while, which is a comforting reassurance to hold onto as our group gets uprooted. Kaplan K12 products and their marketing collateral constitute some of the best work I’ve ever done, and I’m fortunate to have amassed a body of work here that I can point to with pride.

Goodbye, Kaplan K12.

This goddamned year.

26 December 2009, 3:24 a.m.

Just a few days to go before the end of what became a difficult year. The only computers within reach contain no trace of the voluminous freelance book job I took on a bunch of weeks ago, which means I can secrete a few paragraphs about a few thoughts about a few events with a relatively clear conscience.

***

January of 2009 saw the completion of my sixth year of employment as Graphic Designer at an educational services company whose institutionalized regard for information design has waxed and waned with staff churn.

Eleven months later, having seen the reduction and demise of newspapers and magazines from all over the country, I have to wonder how much longer this particular stint can last. Given certain lingering health issues in our house, I am nervous about the prospect of being without insurance coverage again, and without the long-hoped-for legislative safety net these past few months have raised hopes for. It would be nice for both of us to be able to buy into something like Medicare right now. Our friends in Britain are quietly horrified at the mendacity attending American public debate on this topic.

I am less terrified by the prospect of becoming another Bush Depression statistic than I’d expected to be though, which suggests I’m either becoming less anxiety-driven, more functionally professional or merely emotionally fatigued. I’ve been fortunate to find recourse that helps fill the gap created by this insanely unregulated economic environment. Funny how trivial things like, say, food cost so much more than they did three or four years ago.

***

August of this year brought my mother’s final round of congestive heart failure, the last in a decade-long succession. Each myocardial infarction over that time, accompanied by a short stay in a hospital, returned her to the nursing home (and her apartment before that) with significantly decreased heart and lung function. Each return marked a new, lower level of physical capacity that could last for months until the next time. By the time I grew accustomed to the late-night calls from the nursing home informing us which hospital to phone, there weren’t many more to anticipate.

The last hospitalization laid her low enough to require days of sedated intubation until she could recover from pneumonia sufficiently to return to her residence. All the previous times I’d avoided visiting the hospital (after the first time, I resolved to avoid attending each turn of this merry-go-round, which my mother understood) seemed now to be combined into one weeks-long ordeal of intensive-care observation and chilling acquaintance with Do Not Resuscitate instructions.

It’s astonishing that she endured as long as she did. Having survived a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, her heart had been permanently damaged long before I was born. It wasn’t until a decade ago that this caught up with her as the first of several heart attacks occurred. She retained enough lucidity through a haze of mild dementia for me to enjoy something like a third relationship with her these past four years.

Somewhere within this most recent period, it became apparent that I had spent the first twenty years of my life fearing my mother’s arrogant, narcissistic, and mercurial personality disorder. Picture a Polish-Israeli Livia Soprano but with fewer death threats. The impact upon my early development, self-esteem, emotional health, and understanding of social norms took some of high school and much of college to begin repairing.

The next twenty years allowed me to seek some self-respect and distance from this abuse, to learn to hate what I had lived in constant, stomach-churning apprehension of. Most of us can point to years of young adulthood spent in pointed defiance and lingering resentment towards an absent authority. I was no different. Only recently have the useless, futile, imaginary arguments with her faded away.

But the past three years have provided something else, a chance to form a relationship with someone who had been removed from the concerns and anxieties of everyday independent living, someone who had reached the part of an elderly retirement where she could be engaged in relaxed conversation, mostly free of unpleasant imperatives. I could finally sit with this person and talk with her about our shared history without recrimination or accusation. It didn’t hurt that this mostly occurred at the end of my tiring work day; I had neither the motive nor the stamina for irrationality under these conditions.

I’d never visited the woman as often as some might think proper for an only child of a single parent. I’d grown accustomed to our increasing distance over the years, and complaints about this from my mother decreased inversely to her understanding of our changing roles in each other’s lives.

After years of attempting to surmount the annual torrents of paperwork that were required to maintain her status as a government-insured patient of a certain age, I’d actually grown a bit less annoyed by the inconvenience of traveling to Queens from Manhattan at the end of the work day, and the even longer trip home.

My new role in her life soon became apparent. I would visit my mother once every month or two and, having delivered what good or bad personal news could be summarized, I would defy our family’s strong tendency towards morbid pessimism and give her something she could actually use: I would try to make her laugh. What was the point of having survived eight decades if, after all my mother had been subjected to, she couldn’t spend a few moments of her final years in open amusement, laughing at me, herself, or anyone else we both knew?

It was easy enough. It seemed like the right thing to do. And it helped me feel better about a lot of things, even if little could be resolved by the effort. We had a good three years of this before summer kicked her down to a lower plateau.

She returned from her final hospitalization much weaker than before, more dazed by decreased blood flow to her brain. Her memory was even more subject to short-term lapses. I had to repeat more answers to familiar questions.

That last time in her darkened room, I told her to try to keep eating as regularly as she could, but it seemed all remaining strength had finally been knocked out of her. Barely able to hold onto a small cup of juice, she was just about done fighting gravity and inertia. She died in her sleep about a week later, just over one month short of her 83rd birthday.

I wish I’d gotten in one more visit.

New shoes, 15 May 2009.

Take a pill. It ain’t Hamlet.

Some older Star Trek fans are apparently lamenting having been deserted by the entertainment franchise which has sustained and occupied them for so many years. Because they believe, as non-industry consumers tend to, that this franchise is being run by individuals who have an awareness of anything outside the narrow scope of “it made money this past quarter.” It isn’t, and y’all should know better by now.

In fact, Trek is being run by the same cowardly and unimaginative MBAs in expensive suits that run the company you probably work for… if you’re fortunate enough to still have a job with benefits. These guys infest so many different business categories—having been taught exactly how little they need to know about any of the industry-specific businesses they will ever work for—that their behaviors are remarkably predictable as a group, using generalizations I would personally find offensive were I one of them. Call me a hypocrite if you must, but know that I am not Management.

I could write eight paragraphs about Viacom/CBS/Paramount having greenlit J.J. Abrams’ proposal for a new direction for Star Trek, but three facts obviate the need: (1) Paramount Marketing is a revolving door of suits who apparently need to outsource such complex tasks as unzipping their pants to take a piss, (2) Abrams is a smart guy who pitches good ideas to the aforementioned helpless suits about how to revive struggling franchises they have no creative grasp upon, (3) he executes well, which gives him durability in a business category known for a severe attention deficit disorder.

Abrams has succeeded in creating a Star Trek which—surprise!—appeals to a broad audience that is not over 45 years old and—surprise!—doesn’t bend over backwards to cater to that same dwindling demographic. It is indeed a sad month for Comic Book Guy, because his encyclopedic knowledge of canon-specific facts and figures are now relatively useless. And—surprise!—Comic Book Guy is all over the multitudinous fan forums, spewing vitriol and disdain with his obviously superior knowledge about what would constitute a truly successful revival of a dwindling entertainment franchise, without offending his deeply-held religious beliefs.

Fear not, neglected canon-wankers. Despite the fact that you feel unable to accept your archetypical Jim Kirk as a timeline-screwed troubled child who needs a mentor to kick-start his latent greatness, you now have choices.

Star Trek fandom has been enabled by Moore’s Law in a bunch of directions, not the least of which are the capability to produce watchable fan films which dutifully—if variably—carry the Continuity Tradition. Here’s one group of them.

Hidden Frontier Productions has been laboring in the boonie vineyards since 2000, but they didn’t catch my attention until a chance perusal of definitive Trek fan Web resource Memory Alpha revealed to me that there were such things as fan-made movies which were not full of stormtroopers and lightsabers. (I’m reasonably certain it was Memory Alpha, but it could very easily have been another one of those early herculean resource pages that fans love to correct.)

Hidden Frontier Production’s first eponymous series lasted seven seasons, through 50 episodes, during which the producers of this effort taught themselves how to overcome the physical and financial limitations of shooting unfinanced video. Most of the series is played out in front of a green screen which chroma-keys actors into standing digital sets, which are either static images of existing professional Trek or newly created by HF staff. The group’s dramatic standard has therefore largely been limited to scenes depicting people who enter a statically-shot scene and either sit in chairs or stand in place. But towards the last two seasons of the series, the plots became interesting enough to me that this stricture became secondary, and they got better at minimizing the limitations.

The Hidden Frontier series takes place during what I surmise (without in-depth Trek-nerd research) is the immediately post-Voyager era, and draws heavily upon existing canon in attempts to continue stories based upon issues and events raised by televised and theatrical Trek.

The series deliberately and prominently featured characters of various sexual orientations in its plots, which inevitably paved the way for fan-favorite New Voyages/Phase 2 to feature such previously taboo content in its most recently released episode—to a great deal of debate and discussion over the acknowledgment of gay or bisexual individuals in our collective future.

HF’s treatment of such content was initially what one might expect of a community theater production, with deliberately overstated scenes between romantically involved characters whose performances were directed with far more indication than a Trek fan might expect of their straight equivalents. But the point was made, and over time the series became less obviously didactic about it.

Hidden Fronter’s storyline ended and spun off many of its characters into different series for this production group to work upon. Odyssey, The Helena Chronicles, and Federation One all take place subsequent to and dependent upon the events depicted in the parent series. I have to say that’s the order in which I rank them.

Odyssey is HFP’s take on Voyager, Paramount’s second-to-last Trek tv series. A cast change (which directly benefited James Cawley’s Phase 2 series) actually improved the believability of this show’s lead character. Odyssey places a Federation starship far from home, marooned by adversity in hostile territory. Lieutenant Commander Ro Nevin (played by Brandon McConnell) is an uncertain naif, thrust into command of a starship by unfortunate circumstance. McConnell’s performance, along with that of a largely solid cast, carries a series of stories which impress me far more than the standard fan effort I’ve come to expect. The ship itself undergoes far more continuous tribulation than Janeway’s Voyager ever did, incurring damage and casualties which don’t magically disappear at the end of an hour, one of many qualities that the Paramount show repeatedly demonstrated to ill effect.

The Helena Chronicles posits a starship whose captain is investigating the disappearance of the above-mentioned Odyssey. Helena’s Captain Faisal (Sharon Savene) deliberately violates orders to find compatriots on the lost ship. Her status becomes that of a rogue, and she is pursued by the rest of the fleet, despite having discovered valuable truths and having performed actions of worth.

Both Odyssey and Helena feature characters who display deliberately eccentric behavior, but very rarely cross into Mary Sue territory. Helena generally exhibits more space-going action than Odyssey. Odyssey lends itself to far more space-operatic villainy, as did Hidden Frontier. The storylines of the two newer series dovetail into a common tapestry.

Post-production quality has improved remarkably in the two or three years that I’ve been watching this group’s efforts. CG and compositing capability have progressed, but neither could carry the full weight of a good story without the advances in writing and editing that I’ve seen in both. Acting has improved, but anyone who’s itching to compare a volunteer fan effort with a regular commercial tv series should scale down expectations a bit. Given that, some might be surprised by what they see here.

Neither of these series seem weighed-down by HF’s albatross, which was initially a soap-operatic ordeal, full of interminable scenes of people sitting in chairs and arguing with each other in long takes. Most of that is gone, or handled with much more skill. There is fun to be had here now.

I can’t say the same about the work done by Federation One, a series which follows the United Federation of Planets’ President, her entourage, and the crew of the ship she lives aboard (an equivalent of Air Force One).

The material is mostly simplistic politics and subterfuge, written with observably less attention than Odyssey or Helena. The President herself is portrayed by Rebecca Wood, whom I’ve seen perform capably within the HF universe in other roles and with far more believability. In fact, most of this show’s cast seems to be directed with less discretion and finesse than HFP’s other series. This is unfortunate, considering how much good work some of this cast delivered in the parent show.

Hidden Frontier Productions also produced two team-up segments with the excellent Scottish fan group Starship Intrepid, to very good effect. I’ll write a bit more about them in another post, hopefully before the decade ends.

I find it heartening that at least one fan-based effort is cranking out enough free entertainment for fans that it’s possible to distinguish such variability in their collective work. Production values have improved to the extent that much of the CG work is remarkably similar to the pro stuff when viewed on my iPod touch. The work deserves to be seen; these are good stories, assuming you have the patience to wait for their release.

And none of them shows a starship’s hangar deck with girders that cross a shuttlecraft’s flight path.

The Kids are Alright.

Just got back from Star Trek. I am very pleased. And still dizzy.

1. The franchise is in good hands.

2. The Kids are Alright.

3. I finally like Kirk.

4. Spock’s important childhood moment from “Yesteryear” is performed with living actors. My favorite moment of the film.

5. Rat Girl’s appearance is brief.

6. As Khans go, this one was fairly wrathful.

The Book of Movies, Chapters 2 and 3.

Posted on Twitter on May 7th on what I am told was someone’s National Day of Prayer, my reaction to die-hard Star Trek fan expectations of J.J. Abrams’ new movie. I opted to combine two different issues using one silly metaphor.

***

And the evening and the morning were the first Star Trek movie. And Lo, it was shit.

And Paramount said “Bring forth the Harve Bennett, that he may save this, our only viable science fiction franchise!”

And Harve Bennett begat Nicholas Meyer, and together they begat Ricardo Montalban. And the people rejoiced.

And the evening and the morning were The Wrath of Khan.

And Paramount did plead with Meyer to return unto a sequel, that they might avoid the mediocre confusion of Roddenberry.

And the Caliban Spock was summoned to direct his own Resurrection, and the evening and the morning were the Third Movie.

And lo, Meyer was again compelled to lend his strengths towards the next effort. But Paramount was uncertain, and demanded populist fare.

And the evening and the morning and the rubber whales were the Fourth Movie.

But Shatner was a dark and jealous lord, and did demand from Paramount his restitution for accolades accorded his more talented colleague.

And Paramount decreed that Shatner would have his day, but in parsimonious portion.

And the evening and the morning were the Abomination of the Fifth Movie.

And once again Paramount gazed from its lonely tower towards Nicholas Meyer. “Save us yet again!” it cried plaintively.

And as the Beast known as Berman peered from afar in its slime pit, Meyer did deliver unto the populace a story full of succor and joy.

And the Plummer did out-act the Shatner, as the Caliban Spock provided sage words to accompany their journey towards yet more explosions.

And the evening and the morning were the Sixth Movie. Here endeth the lesson.

***

And it came to pass that the vile Beast Berman rose to control of The Tales, and did wrest control of the franchise.

And Berman’s acolytes were many. Among them, Braga and Moore grew to prowess in their own twisted skills. And they were thus called upon.

And Paramount spake: “Write us this next movie! Here is your list of events which must come to pass within it! Study it, but do not falter!”

“And We will thereunto hold your gonads in safe-keeping until thy ministrations are complete! Go now, and Begin the Crew Transition!”

And the Unholy Duo did slay the Shatner, and weaken the Picard. Their images were rife with color, but the Tale was found wanting.

And the evening and the morning were the Seventh Movie.

But the Unholy Duo did not cease in their efforts to tell the Tale, having been freed from the accursed legacy of old men. They began anew.

And the Unholy Duo did tell a Story of Triumph, Temptation, and virile male Posturing with Firearms. And the people were happy once again.

Rapt Fandom ogled the Borg Harlot as she schemed and snarled to no avail, as Picard and his Machina consigned her Sin to vapor.

And the evening and the morning were the Eighth Movie.

But time did pass, attentions wavered, and a Tale was crafted which passed unto such Obscurity that even the Faithful must scratch heads.

And the evening and the morning were the Ninth Movie.

And thence we proceed thereunto one last attempt to tell a story that had been told ofttimes before. Of Revenge, Sacrifice, and Old Age.

And its Players did grow old in the telling, as their audience had done years before. And the evening and the morning were the Tenth Movie.

And a great Malaise settled upon the Fandom, as they turned inward, crafting their own Tales of moments that had never mattered to anyone.

And Fandom turned unto Other Tales, finding solace in their DVDs, eyeing with avarice new Blu-Ray collections of little novelty.

And lo, a new Storyteller found his way to influence, and did approach the Paramount with persuasive balm for nervous accountants.

Here endeth the lesson, because I’m seeing the movie next Tuesday.

***

I’ve only slightly edited for lapses in keyboarding and intrusions by actual day-job work which disrupted what I’d like to call “rhythm.” It turns out that Twitter’s 140-character limit makes for fairly good fake-Old-Testament sentence structure.

I’m looking forward to making a very brief post here after Tuesday night.

Remaining conscious.

Too much going on to maintain the regularity of stuff I’d planned here. Day job is crushingly, exhaustingly inefficient and draining. Freelance gig is time-consuming and frustrating (imagine dealing with a talented artist who doesn’t understand the need for categorizing or consistently naming art that’s going into her illustrated memoir).

Next chance I get, I’ll start posting the brief requests for policy focus I sent to change.gov before the inauguration, and maybe write a couple of new ones.

And then, back to worthy fan-film projects and the Year of Living Copelandey, as it proceeds through its mid-life perambulations.

The Year of Living Copelandey, part 4

Summer of 2007 is nearing when DM and I briefly consider attending the full-on excursion to Tennessee that the Police’s appearance at the Bonnaroo festival would entail. I watch the 2006 video stream of Oysterhead’s performance there and realize (while continuing to marvel at Stewart Copeland’s legerdemain) I have missed another damn good thing. But after hearing the options for ticketing, accommodations, and transport, I recall how long it has been since I’ve chosen to don a pair of muddy sandals and venture into a situation where comfort might take a back seat to endurance. I decide I’m not entirely up for the logistics such an excursion would require. At least for this year. 

A curious story makes its way back from the festival. A gentleman called cpriddims who had signed on as festival staff takes our flag to an area where the Police entourage is due to arrive and then waits until Stewart’s car passes. 

The flag is brandished, and the drummer enthusiastically responds thumbs-up from his passing conveyance. The flag is then flown by enthusiastic hands during the Police’s performance and receives its first three signatures on its blank side as cpriddims, Dive, and the SuperCat together break virgin green territory. Very nice, I think. A flattering treatment of something that was never meant to outlast its initially intended use. 

It’s at this point that I get hazy. (Exacerbating my normally poor levels of memory retention, this season is a busy period at my day job: summer is when our production department gears up to churn out educational-services product for America’s crappy public schools and skill-challenged district-level administrators as their annual autumn dance with a new school year’s incompetence begins. At least I’m not doing liquor and cigarette ads.) 

From then on, a sweet, tiny idea seems to gain even more traction. People on and off the Copeland forum actually begin to clamor for a chance to carry the goddamned flag at concerts, especially after Stewart is seen pointing at the thing, directly acknowledging the presence of His People in front of thousands of relatively clueless bystanders (most of whom are very probably there to see Sting, of course). 

This floors me, all the more so after I see photographic evidence of the drummer’s behavior. As I said earlier, I ain’t ever been what one could call an active rock fan, so I can’t authoritatively judge how unusual this sort of attention is. But it feels like a great deal, and DM has confirmed this. Determined and well-heeled fans have always found ways to interact with rock stars under limited circumstances, but this was fairly exciting and worth pursuing as a continued effort considering the talent up on the stage. 

The Flag has become a Project. Since this project’s proper execution immediately requires some major-league home-office project management, I resolve to try to stay out of DM’s way as she creates a foundation and a workflow for its continued viability. Mind you, I do not yet live within the scope of this project’s architecture. I merely visit the building it’s housed within. 

But my first-ever Police concert in Philly on 7/19 adds my own cement to the bricks, and I begin to feel as though I have a personal interest. 

It’s still early in the tour. Their impressive appearance at the Whisky notwithstanding, the boys are—frankly—still figuring out how to do what they haven’t done together for decades. Despite some relatively lackluster arrangements and a somewhat more lackluster-sounding Philly stadium crowd, it’s great to see the boys up there, it’s great to meet a good bunch of SC.net Scoobies for the first time, and it’s great to feel the enthusiasm these particular grinning fans convey. 

(For the past few years, “fandom” had meant something other to me than the pure fun and joyful involvement with someone else’s creative work that I’d known previously. My own participation in a fan-based recreation of a certain popular 1960s genre tv show had tainted the innocence of my fannish devotion with the seeming inevitability of groupthink and personality conflict, not dissimilar to some community theater groups I remember working with. A bad taste in my mouth left behind by that recent experience was somewhat dispelled by immersion in this new group of exuberant strangers. Or maybe it was just the very good local beer available from the Philly Citizens Bank Park concessionaires.)

The flag is present that day (having acquired several more fan sigatures), up in the side seats with a slightly intense young man named Conroy. Despite the fact that DM has already begun posting specific flag-spotting directions on the forum (not yet knowing if the intended recipient knew or cared about this), Conroy is a bit far from the stage for Stewart to spot easily. Perhaps we can help. 

Flag-arrow sign

The evening before, I’d hacked out a quick arrow with the word “FLAG” on it in a manner I had hoped would provide sufficient long-distance legibility and contrast (Frutiger Black Condensed in white type on a black arrow, tiled onto two letter-size sheets and taped together). DM and the lissome Donna will each carry one of these in an attempt to quickly guide Stewart’s gaze to Conroy’s section.

Stewart diligently and indicatively attempts to follow where we’re pointing (point, turn, point, turn, blink) but is unable to scope out our hapless man in the rafters. I feel bad for Conroy, but I’m engaged at this point. Because I now remember how much fun it is to be a fan of something again. 

Feels like it’s been a while, and it’s very nice.

The Year of Living Copelandey, part 3

It is Spring, 2007. And considering that it has been a while since the Wife has indulged herself in anything resembling fun activity, it seems like a good idea to enthusiastically support what might become a handful of concert dates. 

By this point, Wife has more or less begun hanging out on the aforementioned Stewart Copeland fan forum, which aligns our evenings very well as I’m still posting on one or two far more fanwanky Star Trek fan film sites (occasionally trying to remind younger Trekkies of the finer points of critical thinking regarding modern science, decent writing, political history, and nostalgia’s debilitating effects upon adult judgment. All in an obnoxious day’s work for someone of my advanced age and limited humility). Evenings are spent furiously typing on keyboards in our home office, punctuated by the occasional belly laugh or outraged growl. 

(Nota bene: My Star Trek fandom is always herewith presented as an object worthy of your most erudite ridicule and disdain. Sufficiently avid fans of other entertainment genres should realize, however, that they too live in glass houses of perilous fragility.)

The reunion tour’s Vancouver debut approaches. Wife needs a means to be recognized in a foreign city’s airport by acquaintances she’s never met. Asks me to help make something she can carry easily that’ll stand out from the car-service guys who wait at airports holding up signs with last names on them. Sure thing. 

“How do you want to carry the thing? How durable does it need to be? Okay, let’s accommodate whatever carrying needs might be physically possible, and put grommets on it.” I still have a hokey little hobbyist grommet clamp, meant for thin fabric on historical costume shirts from an entirely different era in my fanwank history. This banner-thing is needed relatively soon, and Wife grabs whatever kelly-green fabric and semi-compatible paint she can find at a relatively local crafts supply. 

She measures out a shape that allows a double-length of it to fold and have side seams to hopefully keep it from unraveling in transit. Since extended durability isn’t an issue, and there’s not much time to lovingly hand-sew the fucker together anyway, we use iron-on fabric tape and fabric adhesive to attach the folded seams to each other. So what if it falls apart in a few days, right?

Available high-resolution Copeland logos are in short supply at this point, so I must interpret from a printout of a low-resolution image taken from online. I enlarge the image, clean it up, turn it to a solid shape, print it out for cutout, and roughly trace it onto the green cloth with old art-supply charcoal. 

But I have no tracing paper. So I have to improvise a light-box. 

While it’s still day outside, I tape the art onto a bedroom window, brace the fabric over it, and try to discern outlines through the murky green. I miss most of them, and thicken the art in the process. Very sophisticated. You’d never know what I do for a living, watching me stumble through this. 

(Keep in mind I haven’t yet seen the source of this logo art, an embarrassing 1985 movie called “The Rhythmatist,” which yielded a substantive soundtrack if nothing else. I’ve only been told that this is a modified image from a movie the guy once made. I have little idea what the silhouette of Maestro Copeland is carrying. So I fake it.) 

No fabric paint is available, so I use standard acrylic. Wife has brought back several varieties of white, and (concerned with making a good impression) worries a bit about the aesthetics of using more than one “shade” of white (“Snow/Titanium”, “White Wash”) in the same area on the field of green. I try not to roll my eyes too audibly, given this thing’s probable life span. 

Crude, but sufficient for the task. Or is it?

The meet-up goes well, and Wife’s report on her newfound acquaintances includes a wide variety of interesting individuals, some of whom I continue to hear about in the following weeks. Longtime Police fans and creative professionals populate the stories. The makeshift flag has served its purpose. 

It isn’t long after this that my vague memory tells me about inquiries coming in from other SC.net people about this flag. The boys are scheduled to perform at Bonnaroo, and something like it could come in handy there. 

And this is where the first domino falls.

The Year of Living Copelandey, part 2

So one day the Wife tells me that The Police are planning a reunion tour, that she’s always been a gosh-darned enormous fan of Stewart Copeland, having loved his work within the group when she was a kid (and I was twenty), and that it’d be cool if we could see them perform sometime during what promises to be something more than the customary geezers-announce-hell-freezes-over-while-we-pay-for-the-grandkids’-trust-funds reunion tour. 

If her durable ardor had been something I’d been told about before, I’d certainly buried it within my impression of some of Wife’s other childhood musical preferences… the likes of many of which just make me snicker. <cough> Guns ‘N’ Roses <cough> 

But there’s certainly nothing wrong with The Police as far as I’m concerned. “Synchronicity” was one of the first CDs I ever bought (years before Napster’s peer-to-peer presence changed the landscape for such purchasing decisions), and their 1985 remake of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” was one of my very last pop vinyl purchases. But that’s the extent of my ownership of anything Police-related as far as I can remember. 

She points me at a choppy Youtoob post of the tour announcement, and several interesting things occur to me as I watch the boys perform a handful of their damnably durable songs. 

First, the gig (recorded off an MTV broadcast) is taking place within a relatively small, intimate space. Something I’ve rarely had the pleasure of hearing a band of this stature perform within. 

Second, the drummer (someone I can’t remember having seen very much of) is being a bit of a jerk, heckling the Almighty Sting while they play. I give the man points for throwing darts at the stuffy hot-air balloon I’ve been hearing on tepid rock radio for years. I also have occasion to remember that this amusingly rude fellow has done lots of soundtrack work, which I respect. 

Third, they seem very unrehearsed in front of that Whisky crowd, but I’m not suffering for it. They sound very good actually. It will be months before I see their brief, energetic appearance at the Grammys, which took place the night before. But right at the moment, I’m seeing something I find impressive: a decades-old band that doesn’t require my indulgence to tolerate while they jam.

A few days later, I acquire the audio from the tour announcement broadcast and then realize how good they actually sound, having a new reason to focus upon the skills being displayed. It’s because these new versions of the songs are working very well for me indeed. It’s as though I’m listening to them for the first time, which is very good. I play the tracks over and over again for days into weeks, the way I do when I’ve found music that resonates. 

Throughout the four tracks, Stewart Copeland does things I don’t remember ever having heard a rock drummer do. He’s unpredictable yet precise, doing things with syncopation and ghod-knows-what-else that somehow add up to much more than the caveman-pounding-on-skins that a lot of rock music coasts along with. It’s as though Charlie Parker had been reborn and somehow translated his saxophone bebop into an amazing percussive mesh that, at times, sounds as though there’s more than one guy sitting at the kit. Proper jazz aficionados will no doubt have more accurate analogies in mind. 

It gets better when Wife steers me to speeches Copeland has given at a screening of his documentary, ”Everyone Stares,” a filmed account assembled from his own home movies of the band’s original tour, and at a conference for Mac OS X. He talks about audio and video editing technology like any true creative who has found newly enabling joy in nerd-dom. He is very entertaining, and spot-on about the profound abilities that cheap desktop computers have made available to everyone. I look forward to seeing the movie. 

“Everyone Stares” is a vigorous kick from start to finish. It reminds me a little of a more-chaotic, less-studious companion to D.A. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back.” Hilarity and irony, wonderfully assembled in a manner which attempts to convey the dizzying experience of having been there, within the bubble of a suddenly-famous rock band. 

And the DVD’s menu music goes a step further, featuring Copeland’s own remixes of several Police standards, which he calls “The Derangements.” Wife sees to it that I am provided with audio of these new/old tunes. Once again, I play the tracks over and over again for days into weeks. 

Okay, I’m sold. I’m a fan, god damn it. I want to see this guy perform in person. What am I, twenty again?

I’m a fucking weepy nerd, and I don’t care.

I just posted a comment over at Gizmodo—of all places—because they had the smarts to publicize JPL’s Mars Phoenix lander and the fantastically smart people who made it possible. One of these stupendous folks was Veronica McGregor, who was Mars Phoenix’s voice on Twitter. Her enthusiastic posts did the job of transforming a dry piece of science into something more.

This was possibly the best use of Twitter I’ve ever seen and a great way to get almost anyone with a heart involved in the farthest-reaching and most efficiently-run part of my space program that has ever existed: JPL’s unmanned robots. Twittering brief progress reports in the manner of an online acquaintance sucked me in almost immediately.

Ms. McGregor nailed me right in my 1960’s childhood with her wonderful personification of the hard-working, stalwart Mars Phoenix lander. Her bravely poetic words, cheerfully forecasting MP’s inevitable death while reminding us daily of all its accomplishments, personified the entire team of JPL and Arizona U’s wonderful engineers and scientists. Her first post about MP’s ultimate fate did make me cry for the same reasons that the end of the Apollo program did in 1972 (and its portrayal in HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon miniseries).

This is my space program. Doing heroic, pure research with tiny amounts of money and enormous ingenuity. And involving me emotionally in the enormity of what it discovers on my dime.