Star Trek: The New Movie

This time, it really is the next generation. All of the old actors from the original show have been phased out, except that Leonard Nimoy as the elderly Spock still had a part.

I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through space and time. It was pretty easy to tell who the bad guys were: they had pointy ears, deathly pale faces, and wore ugly, sharp-edged facial tattoos. Clear signs of villainy.

It was amazing witnessing the "birth" of James T. Kirk and then seeing him briefly as an adventurous and rowdy twelve year old rocketing around in an antique car (retooled from the 20th century!). I don't know cars so I would not attempt to describe the model but it clearly dated back to the early 1960's or even before. Most of the new actors fit perfectly into their roles as "baby" Kirk, Spock, Bones, etc. Uhura seemed a little older than the rest whereas on the original show she was either the same age as the captain or younger. Chekhov bore no resemblance to the original actor, but that didn't particularly bother me.

It was a fun movie, despite the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of Amanda, Spock's mother. I wonder if they will be able to go back in time and prevent these tragedies in a future episode. If so, or whatever they decide to do next, I'm up for it.

The last moments of the movie, light playing over the "brand new" original Enterprise, with the words, "Space...the final frontier..." as a voiceover, put a chill right down my baby boomer spine. And Generation Y'er Jason loved it as well. So did Bruce. All three of us recommend it highly.

Crisis: Danger and Opportunity

I've always heard that the Chinese character for "crisis" contains the characters for "danger" and "opportunity." Well, our family is in a crisis. On the Monday before Memorial Day, Bruce arrived at work to learn that the division he has worked at for 23 years is shutting down operations, and almost everyone except for a few family members and high ranking managers is being laid off.

So, we are all looking for work. I am hoping to become more visible as a freelance writer, even as I am seeking part time and full time employment. Bruce is looking for work in inventory control and purchasing, and Jason has many options either in animal care, clerical, or bookkeeping work.

Still, it's a scary proposition because so many well-qualified people have already lost their jobs. I hear unemployment has been extended out to 72 weeks now, but unemployment would not pay all our bills. So, we'd have to deplete savings until someone is back at work and able to support the family.

There's been a psychological toll, of course. We've all had interrupted sleep, and I managed to come down with some sort of bad cold or garden variety flu (not swine, thank goodness). The only up side to this is that I have not left my house since Monday, and therefore haven't spent any money.

This is going to be the real test of whether we can be frugal enough to get through a period of unemployment without sacrificing some fun and games.

What a week!

This has been an exciting week for me. The grant proposal I was writing for The Hetrick-Martin Institute has finally gone out and the initial feedback is good.

I've finally overcome a mild case of writer 's block, and wrote a piece yesterday on the Buffalo Blizzard of 1977, which I experienced as a 22 year-old law student. Do the math, and I've just given away my age! I'm saving that for December as a friend in Franklinville assures me that the Blizzard of '77 is still memorialized each January in the Buffalo newspapers. Maybe they'll be interested in my personal experiences as an out-of-towner who had never experienced anything quite so devastating as a blizzard that shut down a city for two weeks.

Yesterday I submitted two stories to various magazines, and I submitted a third on Monday.

Also yesterday, while I indulged in lunch at Burger King, I received a call from Youth at Risk, inviting me to work for them on a short term prospect research project next week. This is not the first time I've been offered contract work as a result of sending out a resume for a part time job, and it proves that organizations do in fact keep promising resumes on file.

So I am revved and optimistic about what's to come. The weekend should be fun; we are planning to visit the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's "Color of Hope" art show in Red Hook on Saturday afternoon, and I have the Brooklyn Humanist Community Book Club on Sunday. I wish all my readers a wonderful weekend and week to come.

"The Mermaid Chair"

After reading The Secret Life of Bees I got Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair and read that also. I enjoyed this book just as much.

It had elements of The Bridges of Madison County. Jessie's been married for twenty years and has a grown daughter in college. She's facing a mid-life crisis with her marriage gone stale, and is seeking something she's not sure of. At the same time, her mother, who has been steeped in excessive religiosity since Jessie's father died, has erupted into madness, cutting off her own finger.

Jessie goes to her mother without her husband Hugh, a psychiatrist and a bit of a know it all. The island she grew up on, Egret Island off the coast of South Carolina, has a peculiar custom. There's a monastery there to a St. Senara. Legend has it that this saint was a mermaid who converted to Catholicism, and became a saint. There's a carved "mermaid chair" kept at the church that is carried to the docks and used to bless the fleet on St. Senara's Day.

While she's trying to help her mother and to unravel the puzzle of her mother's self-destructive act, Jessie falls in love with one of the Benedictine monks, Brother Thomas, who has not yet taken his final vows. Jessie and Brother Thomas (Whit) find they have tragedy in common. Jessie's father died at sea when she was nine years old, supposedly blown to bits by a spark from the pipe she gave him. Jessie has lived with a terrible sense of guilt for all these years. Brother Thomas, a former attorney, has joined the monastery to escape from the pain of losing his wife and unborn daughter in a car crash.

The story is permeated by mermaid and siren symbolism and imagery, just as bees permeate the story of The Secret Life of Bees. Jessie, away from her husband and having instigated a separation, begins to find herself, to expand and be the artist she has always longed to be. She realizes that she has pushed herself into too small a space, always putting Hugh and their daughter first and her own amibitions and desires second. She's very similar to Francesca in Bridges in this respect.

The lovers are both "saved and damned" by their connection. Their brief affair forces them both to look at what they really want in life and what they have been hiding from. The mystery of Jessie's father's death is revealed, too, and brings a healing both to her and her mother.

I'm quickly becoming an avid Sue Monk Kidd fan, and I look forward to her future novels.

Bronx Zoo Photos

On April 26th we braved the 92 degree record-breaking temperature and visited the Bronx Zoo. While it was "too darn hot" to see all the attractions, we did manage to see a number of fascinating animals. Here are a few of them.