Last week’s Blog for a Borg, asked:
What are people’s favorite and least favorite [Star Trek] episodes of the past?
And the winner was The Little Fluffy Cat. Mail us to collect your winnings, Little Fluffy Cat.
For Next Gen, it was the episode where Piccard is kidnapped and left on a planet with an alien captain from a species that communicates in stories.
How do you communicate if you don’t know another person’s cultural references?
And ST answered the question. Learn the other person’s cultural references, because when you do, you can understand them. When you do, you can talk to them, and they can talk to you. Communication can happen.
And communication is, to mix my show metaphors, a sonic spanner that can fix anything.
I still tear up when I watch Patrick Stewart telling the story of Gilgamesh, and when I watch him tell the alien captain’s number one what happened on the planet. To me that one show embodies all the best of Trek philosophy.
This week, in Alison Campbell-Wise’s “Revisionist History,” a young married couple find a magic marker that can rewrite their history. If you could choose one mundane household item to be your magic reviser, which item would you choose and how would you use it?
I would say an iron to straighten out the wrinkles in life because my life certainly isn’t permanent press. Unfortunately I can’t remember the last time I used an iron. My first guess was the TV remote, but that’s probably not mundane enough with all the options on TV (and in life) to choose from and not being able to decide on anything for long. Though in real life this SF/F/H thing seems to be a keeper.
My choice is inspired by (and I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this) an old episode of Charmed. I would choose a broom. The girls travel back in time and meet their ancestor who teaches them the real significance of many of the stereotypes associated with witchcraft. The broom is used to symbolically sweep away negative energy.
I like the idea of being able to sweep away things I don’t want in my life. I would use my broom to sweep away apathy, depression, sloth and my tendency to procrastinate. There are other things in my life that need fixing, but if I could get rid of those things, the rest would just fall into place. Of course, if I did that I would never participate in this blog since I use it to procrastinate doing things at work about which I am apathetic.
Now, if I could sweep away people I would get rid of…actually, I can’t really think of anyone. I’ve become pretty good at getting people out of my life who I don’t want around. Oh, except for my roommate’s friend “John.” I’d sweep him away because he is annoying.
Past events I would sweep away include: being stalked in high school, making out with a particular guy after our blind date, going back to the hotel in Bridgeport b/c of the cigarette smoke, asking Brian out the day I met him, my fight with Marie in Budapest, pushing my sister down/off the slide, listening to my sisters and jumping off the balcony, staying home “sick” a few times, lying to my boss, and spending excessive time on my computer while I was unemployed.
Here’s the one problem with a broom: it can’t create. It can push away/out and erase things, but it can’t create. So my broom wouldn’t help me exercise, go to parties and events I should have, actually get on unemployment, talk to Josh about how I felt sooner or reconnect with my extended family members.
The only thing my broom could do is get rid of obstacles. It would be interesting to see what would happen if I did get rid of some of my obstacles; would I finally do the things I should/need to, or would I find new things to bar the way? Who knows, but I guess if I didn’t like where I ended up I could always whip out my broom, brush away the past and start over.
Sock Monkey. For Sock Monkey is wise and I can trust him to hold this power and not allow me to ever actually use it.
For if I change anything, then I change everything. And if I erased my regrets and mistakes, I would surely just create new ones.
Thank you, Sock Monkey. As always, you are a true friend.
I would love to have a magic book. Not so original, but anything you write in it becomes true for a limited length of time. Kind of like that old Citi tv ad: let us help you write a great story.
Answers, stories, money, all sorts of things!
The toilet.
“Gosh, why did I ever buy this shirt? Dancing reindeer are so not cool…” *FLUSH* Gone!
“Why did I answer when she asked me if I thought her new outfit made her butt look big? There was no right answer…” *Brushes teeth, rinses mouth, and spits rinsate into the toilet* *FLUSH* Gone!
“Why did I go and look at my ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page? I didn’t really want to see her making out with her new flavor of the week…” *Tips head over the toilet and pulls out thoughts a la Dumbledore with the Pensieve, drops them into the commode* *FLUSH* Gone!
I’m not sure that the septic system would handle all of this new input so well, so the “magic revisionist toilet” would really have to be a “magic revisionist toilet/septic system” to work properly I suppose.
A revisionist swirly? Oh, I like that.
Oh man, I didn’t even THINK about swirlies…that’s hysterical
Revisionist swirlies could fix self-inflicted hair trauma:
“Wow, I guess I can’t rokk the fauxhawk after all…” *Dips head into toilet* *FLUSH* Gone!
“I would say an iron to straighten out the wrinkles in life because my life certainly isn’t permanent press. Unfortunately I can’t remember the last time I used an iron.”
That reminds me of Karen Heuler’s upcoming Author Spotlight for Thursday . . .
Yes, Rae, I admit to being inspired by Karen’s clever comment in her Author Spotlight, which will be revealed on Thursday! Though truth told, I have an iron somewhere and can’t remember the last time it graced a wrinkle.
Kitchen magnets. I was obsessed with them as a kid. I think I liked the idea of two things that could be insanely attracted to each other one moment, and repelled the next. Maybe this is why I tend to attack those things which scare me with great enthusiasm because I feel that if I can just approach it from the right angle, I’ll come to like it.
But to use them in a magical, cool, revisionist way… I suppose it’d be the idea of having something solid and three dimensional that could help me *identify* those things to which I would be best suited, and most repelled in order to avoid those situations where attacking with gusto does not eventually result in attraction.
*cough*semester-and-a-half-as-an-econ-major*cough*