Star Trek Meets Sex and the City, Jurassic Park Meets Eden
1. I linked to a parodic gay Star Trek video yesterday, but here’s a straighter Trek note to compensate: Let it never be forgotten, while you female readers are rushing off to see the new Sex and the City movie, that co-star Kim Cattrall was previously the traitorous Vulcan named Valeris in Star Trek VI. She’ll never occupy exactly the same place in normals’ fantasties that she does in nerds’ — and her betrayal of the Federation demands severe punishment, obviously.
But Kim Cattrall says she studied the life of Che Guevara as preparation for Valeris, and I have to applaud anyone who sees parallels between a communist mass-murderer like Guevara and a traitorous ally of the hated Klingons.
2. On another poli-sci-fi note, I notice the Wiki. entry for William Monahan quotes his fellow NYPress veteran (and mine) Dawn Eden (about whom more in tomorrow’s Retro-Journal entry) as saying he was witty and “libertarian-leaning.” It also says he was the writer of the Jurassic Park IV script draft preceding John Sayles’. I don’t know anything more about Monahan’s draft specifically, but Sayles’ sounds (from what I’ve read) like it’d be the greatest movie ever if they filmed it, pitting regular dinosaurs against a genetically-engineered team of trained super-dinosaurs with bits of human and dog DNA that give them team loyalty, high intelligence, opposable thumbs, and the ability to shoot machine guns — and they are all given Greek god codenames by the mercenary who frees them from captivity at the mountain HQ of an evil Swiss biotech firm. How could that not be awesome? The only thing better would be a movie version of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur (but at least we’ll see his New Gods characters revamped in two weeks when Final Crisis issue #1 hits comic shops).
Unmentioned in the Monahan entry is his rejected NYPress essay “My Shits,” which would have been a chronicle of his bowel movements over several days, certainly a piece that someone had to write sooner or later, given the Family Guy-like ever-grosser trajectory of the Press back then.
P.S. I recently got what may have been the vaguest spam e-mail appeal I’ve ever seen — or simply a communication from a distant part of the Federation — with a subject header offering me “items for humans.” Who couldn’t use some of those?
P.P.S. In a reminder that humans aren’t the only possible customers, here’s a Scientific American piece on the poor guy who (really) “married” and got dumped by a robot — sort of like not being good enough for a Tamagotchi — pointed out to me by FrontPage’s Jacob Laksin, one of my many fascinating fellow Phillips Foundation Fellows (perhaps I’ll see one or more of them at tonight’s black-tie Milton Friedman Prize awards event at the Waldorf-Astoria).
Kim Cattrall was the first choice to play Saavik in Star Trek II (in the original script for VI, it was Saavik that betrayed the Federation). She was replaced by Kristie Alley for II. When Star Trek VI rolled around, the director decided to create a new character for her.
Your “nerd of the month” trivia for the day.
T.A.B. | 1:07 pm on the 15th of May, 2008
Was a Sex and the City reference the best you could come up in the interest of being straighter?
dave | 1:38 pm on the 16th of May, 2008
Did Bill Monahan really write a rejected NYPress essay called “My Shits”? Or are ya being funny? It’s definitely funny and such an essay woulda been funny too. When did Monahan leave the Press? Must’ve been 1995?
Douglas Fisher | 4:23 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
To the best of my knowledge, the Monahan story is true. Not sure exactly when he left the Press, but the mid-90s was when I was a contributor and heard of the essay.
Todd Seavey | 4:35 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
Oh cool. I went and pumped the information into the Wiki article. Was “My Shits” already written when it was rejected? Maybe I can read it on his web site.
Douglas Fisher | 5:11 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
Not sure.
Todd Seavey | 5:15 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
YES! I think you guys may have stumbled upon a big piece of the puzzle that is Monahan’s past. You may not know that Monahan used to publish some of his NYPress pieces in an offbeat lit mag from Massachusetts called Old Crow Review (See Wikipedia). He published “Heroin” there, and a really crazed but great piece called “The Virtual Career”. But in a rascally move, someone, in 2004, removed every issue 12 of Old Crow Review from all libraries across America that held subscriptions, so whatever was in that issue is a total mystery! It could very probably be that Monahan’s “My Shits” piece was in issue 12 of Old Crow Review.
Points in favor:
-If Monahan really did write “My Shits”, and didn’t just propose it, he would definitely seek to publish it later in Old Crow Review. He published the highly controversial NYPress piece “Heroin” there, in 1997. Why not, “My Shits” in 2004?
-People don’t just take any old issue of an obscure lit mag out of circulation. One of the libraries was located all the way in the heartland, at the Univ of Wisconsin-Madison. Issue 12 has to have something highly controversial/scabrous in it for someone to go to the effort of removing this issue from every library.
Points not in favor:
-Issue 12 was published in 2004. Many years after “My Shits” I’m guessing. So there was a delay, which could very well have a good explanation, but it begs the question why Monahan wouldn’t just let “My Shits” rest. Of course, his script “Tripoli” took more than a decade to sell–he didn’t give up–and a similar story is true of his novel “Light House: A Trifle”.
-Entirely possible the disappearance of issue 12 of Old Crow Review has absolutely nothing to do with Monahan. However, he did burn all copies (but one) of his novella Jejeune back in his youth, and even took his own novel Light House: A Trifle off the market in 2004 (same year Issue 12 disappeared).
There are probably other points to consider, but I think I’ve creeped you guys out enough with this “idea”. Hey, this is what scholars do, and I am almost one.
Billy
Billy C | 11:48 pm on the 20th of May, 2008
Uhhh… that’s creepy, no matter if Billy acknowledges his own creepiness. What kind of person was William Monahan, Todd? I get you weren’t close because you would have cheered for William Monahan’s Jurassic Park IV script otherwise but his personality must be a little familiar to you? Blog once about him maybe?
Dieter Ullrich | 10:55 pm on the 19th of June, 2008
I only knew him via his writing on the Press while I was there — but humor will hit a lot of odd topics eventually.
Todd Seavey | 8:54 am on the 20th of June, 2008