Star Trekking for June 9, 2020
Get CONnected!
I’m just going to open with this from Thad.
And this from Molly.
Trek is about hope and inclusion and INFINITE DIVERSITY IN INFINITE COMBINATIONS.
And now some brief diversions from the important work that still needs to be done.
CONnected
There’s a virtual event coming up this Sunday. I’m excited to be a participant, and later in this issue you’ll find a Mind Meld with the event’s organizer, Kayleigha Zawacki.
But first, the details, from their website.
Join us Sunday, June 14th from 3-6pm EST!
Chat with artists, podcasters, small business owners, cosplayers, crafters, fan-based organizations and more!
We will post photos and a bio for each participant. Attendees will have the chance to visit each participant's virtual "table" by clicking a link to a Zoom or Skype meeting that the participant is hosting. Chat in person with people who love what you love--just like you would at the con.
This event is free for both participants and attendees, and is meant to be an opportunity for us all to see old friends again and to make new ones.
This should be a fun way to spend Sunday afternoon. Drop in and say Hi to me and all the other participants!
THIS WEEK’S RANDOM TREK REFERENCE
There were several random Trek mentions that popped out at me this week, but I’m just going to share this thing that happened to me.
And that, my friends, is the real next generation.
True love. With honor.
ART TREK TUESDAY
By Lee Sargent
Each week, one of my favorite artists, Lee Sargent, draws a random Trek-related scene.
The episode is from DS9 - “The Nagus.”
I’m not the biggest fan of the character of the Nagus but I think this was a solid Ferengi world builder. The more interesting ideas in the episode for me though come from Nog’s storyline. Kept from learning by his family, considered a bad influence on Jake and the recipient of prejudice. It’s a fascinating story especially knowing where he ends up.
I very much liked the scene towards the end that had Sisko uncovering that Jake is sneaking out at night to tutor Nog so he doesn’t fall massively behind.
It’s probably DS9 at its best, challenging misconceptions and portraying a positive single father and son dynamic.
NOG: Planets in the Bajoran. What’s that word?
JAKE: System.
NOG: System.
JAKE: That was pretty good. Want to try some more?
NOG: The lar, largest planet is Bajor. It has three moons?
JAKE: You got it. Keep going, keep going.
NOG: The third moon, it has…
Check out more of Lee’s art at LeeDrawsStuff.com. Support his work at Patreon.com
MIND MELD
With Kayleigha Zawacki.
In which we get to know a Trek fan just a little bit better.
Kayleigha is the head of Science Division, makers of interactive Tribbles. She’s also originted the CONnected virtual community con coming up this Sunday.
Please tell us a little about yourself/
Kayleigha Zawacki. I am a lighting designer for theatre and dance. No one knows what that means, but basically when you go see a show I’m the one that decided where all the lights go, what type of lights they are, what color they should be, and when, how, and how bright they turn on. I think my love of theatre actually stems from my upbringing as a Star Trek fan. Star Trek is about telling stories that matter—or at least it is to me. Theatre does that, too. I get to use light to create emotional environments which, in collaboration with the rest of the design elements and the directing and performing, hopefully change the way that people view the world.
I also make App-Enabled Tribbles. “The Trouble with Tribbles” was one of the first episodes that my dad showed my sister and me. I wanted a pet one so badly that I made it out of leftover faux fur from a Halloween bunny costume. I guess I never gave up on the idea of creating a “pet” Tribble that responded to me as if it were alive. Jay and I just finally decided we’d give it a go one day as a kind of side project for ourselves. We never knew it would come this far. We had a lot of fun figuring out how to program the different modes to make the Tribble seem alive. The app that allows you to make the Tribbles scream at people on command, though—that’s my dad’s contribution to the project. He’s a funny guy.
I also enjoy welding and sculpting. Jay and I have a workshop in our garage. He does the wood work when we have a project, and I handle the metal. We’ve also been entertaining ourselves by creating Tribble cosplay outfits. It started out as a way to keep people engaged while we all waited for the pre-orders to arrive, but it’s so much fun that we have just kept doing it.
What’s your first Star Trek memory?
I can’t tell you for certain what my first memory is, but I have several pretty great ones from my childhood. My dad built us an Enterprise bridge console for the backyard playhouse. We kept a captain’s log and ran around in red turtlenecks--they were red because we had red turtlenecks for our school uniforms and that was the only thing we could find to convert into Trek uniforms—to try to get away from the aliens that had “beamed” onto the bridge through the trap door in the ceiling.
I also remember realizing that Star Trek was more than a TV show. We watched “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” and I remember my dad asking us what we thought about Bele and Lokai hating each other because their faces were mirrored. When we told him that it was ridiculous, he told us that this happens in real life and that it doesn’t make any more sense in the real world for people to hate each other based on skin color. It blew my mind that tv and entertainment could be used to teach. I’m not just telling this story because it’s relevant right now. I really do remember this moment as the moment that changed everything in terms of how I watched Trek and what I took away from it. Looking back, I also think it’s what started me down the path to becoming a theatre artist.
Which series (or movie) do you most enjoy watching and why?
TOS will always be my first love. It was the only series I had ever seen until Jay and I started dating in college and I decided to introduce him to Trek. Since then, we have watched every Star Trek ever created together. TOS will still always be the one that I will just pop on if I want to watch some Trek. That being said, I think the best Trek is Deep Space Nine. That’s a storyteller’s Trek. DS9 did such a spectacular job tackling so many complicated issues. Jay and I are re-watching it right now. It’s hard to watch at times, because it can get dark, but it’s important to watch. And the cast is INCREDIBLE!
Which series (or movie) are you least familiar with?
I’m least familiar with the Kelvin timeline movies. I love that they bring new audiences into the Star Trek community. They just aren’t my favorite.
Favorite Captain?
Oh this is so hard! I’ve had a complicated relationship with Kirk. He started out as one of my heroes when I was a kid. Then, in college, I had a hard time taking him seriously.
I really loved Picard when Jay and I started watching Next Gen. He was so unflinching in his principles and his defense of all forms of life. Picard is everything that we want Starfleet to be—everything we want to be. He’s my ideal captain.
However, I have recently re-discovered my respect for Kirk. I guess as you grow up you find yourself in more situations where you aren’t always sure what the right thing to do is, or when you do know what it is but you have to remind yourself. If you think about it, Kirk was a captain relatively early on in mankind’s space exploration. WW3 wasn’t really too far behind mankind, if you consider how long change tends to take on this planet. Now when I watch TOS, I see a captain determined to do the right thing and to uphold the beliefs that he holds dear, and at the same time having to work fight impulses that have been hardwired into humanity. It’s moments like when he chooses not to kill the Gorn in “Arena” that you see him having to overcome violent tendencies to be better. It’s so human. He believes in the value of all lives, but he has to overcome the instinct to defend himself with violence. It’s overcoming the violence that makes him a strong captain. Timeline-wise, Picard’s generation is further removed from that post-WW3 version of humanity. Every generation hopefully does a little better than the last.
So I guess I’m not going to answer your question. I picked two captains—one that represents the humanity that we want, and one that worked hard to help get us there.
What led you to become a Tribble breeder?
I just wanted one. My childhood self wanted one, really. I guess when we have fascinations with things as kids they don’t always go away. It stuck with me for some reason. It was something I had always wanted that hadn’t existed. There were some other Tribbles out there, but for whatever reason they didn’t seem alive enough. Dad and Jay and I had been joking about making our own, and adding the app to let you “set it off” on your friends. At some point in my life I grew up into someone who solves the “where do we get this” problem by just making the thing that I need. It came from going into theatre design. One day we realized that we might actually be able to build a Tribble to my specifications, so we took to online tutorials to give it a try.
What's a Star Trek book you love?
One of my regrets is that I haven’t gotten into the books, yet. It’s not because I don’t like reading, or because I don’t have any interest in the Star Trek books. It’s really only in the last year, as Jay and I have become active in the Star Trek community, that I have really become aware of them. I’m actually looking for recommendations to get me started.
I do have one hand-me-down Star Trek book that my dad gave me that I treasure. It’s a chapter book about the monsters of Trek. My dad and my sister and I always loved the Star Trek monsters. My sister and I used to crawl around and pretend to be the Horta. Whenever we saw a low-hanging cloud, we would joke about sickly sweet smells. And, of course, we would hiss at each other, promising to be “merciful and quick” when we were about to defeat someone else in a board game. It was just a thing that we did. My family has a quirky sense of humor, I guess.
First merchandise you remember having?
Oh man. I don’t remember. We made most of the stuff that we had—our uniforms, our playhouse, my first bunny-fur Tribble, Snowball. You couldn’t just hop on the internet and search for Star Trek stuff, and I didn’t attend a convention until I was an adult, so there wasn’t a lot of merchandise around. We played a lot with the phasers and tricorders that my dad had in his collection.
Most treasured Trek item that you own?
Oh that’s so hard! I have a room upstairs that is completely full of Star Trek (and some Ghostbusters) stuff. We call it the Kayleigha Cave, and it has been functioning as Science Division’s home office. I can’t decide between four. They are all special. My favorite Star Trek items are ones that have memories associated with them.
I have a tiny paint can signed by Rene Auberjonois. Jay and I were attending our first Star Trek convention, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that stars would sign things you would bring to them. I heard Rene speaking about his love of theatre, and Star Trek, and storytelling. Odo was already my favorite DS9 character at the time, and finding out that the actor who portrayed him was so devoted to the principles of Trek and to the art from that I loved (theatre), made me suddenly want to meet him. It was weird experience. I had never been into collecting autographs. I realized that I had nothing for him to sign, and I desperately wanted a bucket. We went to the hardware store to find one, but they didn’t have anything good. Then I remembered that the theatre paint shop (I was a theatre student at the time) had empty paint cans. I ran all the way back and grabbed a can. I knew it would look like a paint can, not a bucket, but as soon as I got up to the table, Rene shouted, “Oh, it’s my bucket!” He spent probably five minutes determining which of his sharpies would show up best on the bucket. He had brought four different colors to make sure that no matter what someone gave him to sign, the signature would not just be visible, but it would also be appropriately color-coordinated.
I am also quite fond of my bat’leth. My family has always told me I’m a Klingon. At first I thought they were making fun of me, but as I have grown older and encountered more Klingon culture, I have really come to identify with them. I’m not a big slaughter your enemies and eat their hearts kind of person, but I deeply understand the Klingon sense of honor, their respect for tradition (when it’s not taken too far), and their poet’s souls. My dad actually gave me a Klingon name as a kid (it’s a secret name). He would announce it, and then follow it with "soccer warrior princess thing," which I loved. It let me be a princess and a warrior at the same time (and I loved playing soccer). My favorite Christmas present ever from Jay is a sword of Kahless that he made me, scaled to a Klingon my height. There was actual drafting involved to get the dimensions right. It’s beautiful.
My third isn’t an item, it’s several. I have Gorn collection. Somewhere along the line my dad and I started a tradition of giving each other Gorns for holidays. I think we thought it was funny, and it just kept happening. It hearkens back to our family love of the Trek monsters, I guess. Needless to say, I have a lot of Gorns now and they all remind me of my relationship with my dad. It makes me smile every time I see a Gorn.
Okay, almost done. The last treasured Trek item is a prototype Tribble signed by Nichelle Nichols. Jay and I debuted the Tribbles at STLV last year. We only had prototypes at the time, so we couldn’t give any away, but I really wanted to show Nichelle what we had done. I took a Tribble to her table and asked her to sign the electronics box inside. The signature was really just an excuse to show her the Tribble. She was my childhood hero. When Nichelle saw the Tribble, she exclaimed, “It’s a Tribble!” and stroked it with delight. She love that it trilled every time she petted it. When she went to sign it, the Tribble started trilling every time she moved the electronics box-- it’s programmed to do that. I remember that she told it to hush, and it immediately stopped trilling. I created the things and I had never seen anything like it. Even Tribbles listen to Nichelle! I’m still not huge into collecting signatures, but I do forever treasure the experiences that I have with the artists who are dedicated to telling Star Trek’s stories. So that Tribble is pretty special.
How has Star Trek made a difference in your life?
Oh man. Star Trek and my life are kind of interwoven at this point. I wrote a blog on my website about growing up on Trek and how it became a master class for me in humanity. I later moved that blog post to the About page on the site (at the bottom) when it became apparent that I was not going to be able to sustain a blog, as well as run a small business and work as a freelance lighting designer. Of course, I have a little more time now, since theatre isn’t happening.
I think Star Trek has really helped me though this time of isolation. I am fortunate to be “stuck” at home with the love of my life and the world’s best pup, but I don’t think I would have handled unemployment well without having the Trek community to talk to. I mentioned that Jay and I hadn’t been really involved in the Trek community prior to the Tribbles. It wasn’t because we weren’t interested—it was more that we didn’t know that it existed to the extent that it did. Going to the first Vegas convention last year was mind-blowing. I made so many new friends! I learned how to have internet friends! I had never been active online much. I didn’t really participate in social media. Jay jokes that the things most people post on social media I just send to my family. We are kind of our own close-knit network, and I never really expanded beyond that. I love trading texts with my Mom. We are in constant communication. But then I had to run the social sites for our business, and I learned that there are so many INCREDIBLE people who love the same things that I do. Instead of being stuck at home with nothing going on during this time, I am attending regular online Trek events, having conversations with my new friends, playing Star Trek Catan with my dad over Skype, and putting together a community convention. I have something to focus on right now—and it’s a positive an uplifting thing. That means so much.
Tell us about a StarTrek-related rabbit hole you fell deep into.
Tribbles. And it’s still going on.
Thanks, Kayleigha!
THIS WEEK IN TREK HISTORY
And here we are again. Apologies for the radio silence last week, a little problem with the wee bairns, but don’t despair - a little slingshot around the sun and I’ll go back and do it. This week: what does God need with a starship?
Everyone loves Vic Fontaine, and as such celebrate the fact that actor James Darren was born on June 8, 1936, while three years later in 1939, Bernie Casey stepped out. Casey was a solid character actor with a fine career, during which he appeared as the treacherous Cal Hudson in DS9 episode "The Maquis". June 9 saw the birth of Yvette Picard aka Herta Ware in 1917, and in 1931 Joan Marshall, who was Lt Areel Shaw in the second season TOS episode "Court Martial".
The great Ed Bishop was born on June 11, 1932; his Trek appearance was as Asmodeus in the TAS episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" (try saying that three times while drunk) but is known by SF fans in general as Ed Straker in Gerry Anderson’s "UFO". June 12, 1960, saw the emergence of Felecia M. Bell, who played Jennifer Sisko in both normal and mirror universes in several episodes of DS9, while June 13, 1918 saw the birth of another "Court Martial" actor in the guise of Percy Rodrigues, who was also a stellar trailer narrator.
Also born on June 13 was the great Ralph McQuarrie (1929), who drew concepts for the refit Enterprise in "The Motion Picture" which would eventually become the USS Discovery, Malcolm McDowell (1943) aka the scowling Dr Soran in "Star Trek Generations", and finally Dennis Ott (1958), better known as the alien Kirk has a fight with in Rura Penthe in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" (not everyone’s genitals are in the same place, don’t you know).
On June 9, 1997, DS9’s "In The Cards" aired, seeing Jake and Nog after a rare baseball card for Sisko. DS9 continued on June 10, 1998 with "The Sound of Her Voice" and June 12, 1995, with "Facets". June 12, 1993 also saw the airing of the TNG episode "Timescape". In 1992 June 13 saw TNG’s fifth season finale in the shape of "Time’s Arrow Part I", while 1993 saw one of the franchise’s most celebrated episodes in DS9’s "Duet".
And finally, on June 9, 1989, the Enterprise took its latest big screen adventure with "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", which saw Captain Kirk commanding both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a much derided film but it’s pretty interesting in its ambition if not its execution, but it does have an amazing score by Jerry Goldsmith and one of Chekov’s funniest lines. У нее замечательные мускулы!
DIRECTIVES
I joined my friends at TrekMovie for Trekkies Together.
Sad news about John Winston, aka Lt. Kyle. As a kid, my feelings about who was “My Favorite Character” fluctuated. Spock was often the one, sometimes Kirk, and for a long time I loved Scotty the most. But for another fairly long stretch (or at least what felt like a long time back in childhood) Lt. Kyle was my favorite. I was so pleased when he showed up in The Wrath of Khan.
Short Treks is now available on physical media, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Don’t forget to check out CONnected this Sunday, June 14!
Next week’s issue will include a Mind Meld with podcaster Michael Kenny, aka Treklad, who kindly invited ME(!) onto his podcast, Networking on Nimbus III. My episode goes up, well, today! Do check it out if you are so inclined. And let me know what you think (unless, of course, you think I was a disgrace, then I’d just as soon you keep your opinion to yourself).
Grok you later!
LLAP,