This Is Not Out of the Blue

I'm All Alone, More or Less

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:05:29 GMT

After all of the planning and the worrying and the hustle and the bustle around Kimberly's visit to Winnipeg since I first brought it up, how did everything work out?

Pretty relaxed, actually.

Thursday, October 1

Armed with a number of options and plans for the visit (thanks in large part to input from amysisson, dontmentionlove, foryoursplendor, ninthscompanion, twinkiegirl, and others offline), but concerned about the cold weather, I picked up Kimberly at the airport on a rainy afternoon and immediately began the Canadian indoctrination process with a visit to Tim Hortons. ;)

Although I already knew that "double-double" was a piece of Canadian slang, I was quickly surprised to learn that apparently, "parkade" is also a uniquely Canadian term, describing what (I'm told) Americans call "parking decks," and I was surprised yet again later when I discovered that using "suck" as a noun (e.g. "she's a total suck") is a Canadian thing. (Despite the rhyme, there are no video games to be played in a typical parkade, but the airport itself does have an actual arcade on the second floor.) Even when you pay a lot of attention to American culture and notice its differences, these little things can still startle you.

Since this was Kimberly's first significant visit to Canada, though, I was conscious of the more obvious differences (like the rampant bilingualism on our signage), and I was aware of Kimberly's linguistic interests, so I'd even gotten her Only in Canada, You Say: A Treasury of Canadian Language in case more background was needed than I could provide.

I took a creative route from the airport which allowed me to give something of an "Edgar Tour" through Winnipeg, featuring notable personal landmarks (like my high school, for example), but once we got to my place and Kimberly unpacked, we had a bunch of time to chill and catch up before heading out to Haunted Winnipeg Investigates, a ghost tour which proved...somewhat less investigative than either of us had hoped.

(While we waited for the tour to start, Kimberly also had the opportunity to try another local delicacy, Old Dutch ketchup chips.)

Another one of those differences I wouldn't normally notice is the predominance of animal imagery to be found around here--from Canadian coinage (of course) to how the levels in the parkade were identified--and as a symbol of Manitoba, the bison is particularly common. (Unfortunately, we didn't see any of the MTS commercials with bison in them during this visit.) When we stopped at the Manitoba Legislative Building during the ghost tour, Kimberly was keen to be seen with the bronze bison who flank the Grand Staircase, but my photo didn't make this especially clear:

After the tour was over, the only restaurant I definitely knew was going to be open for such a late dinner was Papa George's in Osborne Village. (We might've been able to squeeze in a meal at Dessert Sinsations, which had come previously recommended, but I didn't realise at the time that it was open late on Thursdays.) I initially found this option convenient, if unremarkable, but Kimberly was surprisingly impressed with the size of the portions there, especially given the price.

Despite it being later than late by the time we got home, we ended up finding a marathon of different editions of Top Model on Fashion Television: The Channel featuring not just Canada's Next Top Model, but also Britain's Next Top Model and Australia's Next Top Model--all of which I knew would appeal to Kimberly as a reality-television connoisseur--so we ended up watching those in a compare-and-contrast exercise until we couldn't stay awake any longer.

(Canada benefits in general where television is concerned by getting programmes from throughout the English-speaking world, so we often get to see American versions of such series alongside their foreign counterparts, but Canadian editions of reality shows tend to be limited to skill-based competitions. As such, we have Canadian Idol, Project Runway Canada, So You Think You Can Dance Canada, and so forth, but no Big Brother Canada, for example. Two other series Kimberly didn't get to watch were Canada's Worst Driver and Canada's Worst Handyman, adapted from similar British series.)

Friday, October 2

We didn't have specific plans until the evening, and the weather had taken a turn for the decent, so Kimberly and I spent much of the day travelling around on foot, even though she'd sprained her ankle recently--she assured me it was fine and there hadn't been any problems the day before. We started going north on Osborne Street (a main thoroughfare which runs by my place) while I tried to offer some personal or cultural observations about whatever we happened to pass on our way. (Sample Factoid: "Did you know Winnipeg is the Slurpee Capital of the World?") Once we were in Osborne Village again, we stopped in at Gags Unlimited, which was already in full-on Hallowe'en Mode.

Kimberly was taken aback at the row of Barack Obama masks which greeted us as we walked in, especially given that we also ended up seeing masks for both Clintons, Reagan, and Nixon, but not a single mask related to a Canadian politician such as current Prime Minister (and part-time LEGO-impersonator) Stephen Harper. To a Canadian, the lack of such masks isn't going to seem that weird--I mean, would Stephen Harper even want to be Stephen Harper for Hallowe'en?--but the predominance of American culture (including political culture) in this country can seem rather strange when first encountered.

Lunch was at Stella's Café & Bakery, the local eatery recommended most when I asked about restaurants, and large portions were again in evidence--as were "Hardcore Brownies," the first in a number of items labelled with adjectives like "Hardcore" or "X-Treme," which I'd never noticed was such a common thing in Winnipeg. Having said that, I had to tell Kimberly that the number of places offering tattoos and piercings on Osborne is atypical of the city as a whole...we're not that hardcore.

Having reached the Legislature again after lunch, we had the option of going straight downtown or taking the Assiniboine Riverwalk to The Forks, a popular local destination (particularly for tourists), and chose the latter. By the time we got there, we were in the mood for gaming--and my existing board games and such are scattered about rather than centralised in a rec room the way I want them to be--so after doing a general tour and picking up some Canadian items for Kimberly's family back home, I thought we should search for Fluxx, which a lot of local people I know like to play but (for some reason) I've never owned myself.

Usually, I would turn to Kite and Kaboodle at The Forks to solve this sort of problem, given their excellent selection, but when they didn't have any version of the card game, I did something (apparently) very surprising: I consulted a phone book. It seemed so strange and anachronistic that I not only knew where to find one at The Forks but would think of it as a natural option to look for other game outlets that Kimberly took a photo for posterity. I noted a couple of possibilities, but we resolved to halt the quest for the moment because those specific evening plans were rapidly approaching.

Since the only people who expressed interest in joining us for anything after I threw it out there were members of my family, Kimberly and I met up with my brother Tony for dinner before going to see Zombieland, which was actually shot in Kimberly's current home state of Georgia. (The movie is great, by the way, and I've already sat through it twice.) I was grateful for the opportunity to take her to SilverCity Polo Park, the same cinema used for many an übergroup outing--though it occurred to me later that we could've gotten a gaming fix by playing air hockey or some arcade games there, but didn't. Still, Kimberly was suitably impressed by the ability to eat frogurt at a movie theatre.

My favourite part of the actual screening, though? After the (obligatory) trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon in front of the movie, one girl near the front applauded, and she was met by a chorus of booing, followed by applause for the booing. :)

Saturday, October 3

Still wanting to get our game on, I phoned around searching for a store that might have Fluxx, but no one I rang had a deck to spare, so we caved and went to Toys "R" Us to look for a possible alternative, eventually coming across the tile-based Carcassonne. ("Especially good for two players!") Since we were right there already, we also stopped in at the nearby Party Stuff to check out possible Hallowe'en gear. Upon returning home, we had enough time to give Carcassonne a try before going out for the evening, and it is a good two-player game--not overly time-consuming, but involving elements of strategy which keep you thinking.

Our main plan, however, was to check out that night's bonspiel at the St Vital Curling Club. Kimberly is a big curling fan, but had never actually seen it live, while Winnipeg has around twenty-five separate curling clubs. Ideally, I would've liked to sign us up for a Learn-to-Curl class, but it was slightly too early in the curling season for that. :/ Nevertheless, I wasn't worried about being able to find some hard-hurrying action to watch as spectators. (This was the view from our seats.) I'm not sure what other people there might have thought about our watching what was basically just a local match, but we had a good time, grabbed some snackage, and then checked out the cover band playing mostly songs from the Sixties--fitting, since the members of the band looked to be in their sixties--in what was possibly the most Manitoban activity we could've chosen on a Saturday night. (As Justin Timberlake would say, this was Classic 'Peg.)

It was still relatively early, even when all that was done, so after Kimberly questioned why I wasn't on a curling team--and I told her she could at least be on a virtual curling team by getting Deca Sports for the Wii--we also stopped in at The Billabong Bar & Bistro, an Australian-themed place in Osborne Village (which there was a certain logic in trying, since we originally met in Sydney), before watching that night's Saturday Night Live (Ryan Reynolds/Lady Gaga) at my place and marvelling at how Reynolds seemed to phone it in despite his comedic chops. I took his performance and threw it on the ground!

Sunday, October 4

Now that we had a ready gaming option, we could start the day off with a couple of Carcassonne rematches at the kitchen table before heading back to The Forks. The weather had started to get chilly again, but there were some (temporary) amusement park rides set up there, so we took a ride on the Ferris wheel (allowing me to point out some more Winnipeg landmarks from the top), nurtured our natural competitive streaks on the bumper cars, and checked out Sugar Mountain Express, a pair of train cars converted into a confectionery store. We didn't get anything there, but eventually managed to score another local food favourite, Clodhoppers, which several people had reminded me Kimberly should try whilst she was here.

It should be clear by this point that I'd endeavoured to have one "headline" event of interest for each evening of the visit--and for the last night, that was A Maze in Corn, a little south of the city, which I hadn't been to in a long time. We got there around dusk, somewhat later than anticipated, so we asked if there'd be enough time to check out both the Haunted Forest and the maze itself (since it costs more to try both). We were assured that there would "definitely" be enough time (possibly because such an assurance meant that we'd pay more), but after waiting quite a while in a strange corral-like structure for the haunted tour to start, we gave up and headed for the maze.

Another disappointment followed when none of the promised scavenger hunt items (each relating to a different town in Manitoba) were anywhere to be found (by us, anyway) in our trek through the corn maze. The maze is admittedly extensive, and it was getting progressively darker, but we spent a good deal of time in there and covered what we considered to be a majority of the maze's tracks, so both of us felt like we'd somehow missed something really obvious about the nature of the scavenger hunt--especially when other people told me later that they'd found the items inside without much of a problem.

Returning to Winnipeg, items unscavenged, I realised that there were only a few hours left before I'd have to drop Kimberly off at the airport, so I stayed up and let her get a few hours of sleep with the knowledge that I'd be awake for the obscenely early departure call.

As you can tell, the visit was laidback, but fun, with the fact that it ended and the absence of Kimberly's husband Scott as the only parts which made me a sad panda. I really hope that his work commitments won't keep him away next time.

As you can also tell (and as I expected), a lot of the trip involved comparisons between many aspects of Canadiana and Americana, most of which I haven't even mentioned yet--everything from the dominance of Kijiji over Craigslist in Winnipeg to the nature of provincial equalisation payments to how companies sneak in a maple leaf on their Canadian logos (the middle of the McDonald's Golden Arches, the apostrophe in "Wendy's," and so on), just in case you forget what country you're in when you're dealing with them.

There was less talk of home redecoration than expected--mostly discussion of potential changes to the apartment rather than actually shopping for new decor or furniture. Kimberly and I seem to be on the same page of ideas, but we never devoted an afternoon to this sort of thing as I'd originally imagined.

On a(nother) side note, I had the rental car for an extra day on either side of the visit, and it becomes immediately clear in that sort of situation how much more oriented Winnipeg is to its entrenched car culture than it is to cyclists, pedestrians, or frequent users of public transit. I was pretty much aware of this already, but the difference in practice is astounding.

All in all, I'm happy with my first attempt at offering some Canadian hospitality here in the new(ish) place, and I can only hope my next opportunity goes at least as well. :)

It's Cold Outside, There's No Kind of Atmosphere

smackdab@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:33:27 GMT

The rental car is being picked up in a couple of hours, and the apartment is on track to getting (somewhat) more organised, which means the pieces are slowly coming together for Kimberly's arrival in Winnipeg tomorrow...

Unfortunately, however, she just sprained her ankle, and the weather forecast for this weekend is colder than I'd hoped, so we'll most likely be taking it pretty easy whilst she's here (and to be fair, she was telling me to take it easy anyway).

Besides feeling that the city puts its best foot forward during the summer--even if the colder weather makes for an (arguably) more "authentic" Winnipeg experience--all of the summertime events I mentioned also nicely provide a built-in environment where a visitor can run into a lot of local people I know. (This was the case with my last visitor, who came during FolkFest, and would be very true for anyone who came during the Fringe Festival.) A lot of the concern coming across in my preparations stems from the fact there isn't really an autumnal equivalent to this, when the nippy climate makes it harder to get people out for things--and of course, it's always a burn when you try to put a social gathering together yourself and it doesn't materialise.

If you're local and not intimidated by the thought of single-digit temperatures, we're planning on going to the late showing of Zombieland on Friday night at SilverCity Polo Park, taking in at least part of the St Vital Fall Classic bonspiel, and probably spending the bulk of the remaining time at the homestead. Feel free to comment here or contact me through the usual channels, and I'm sure we can figure something out...

Stand on Guard, Getting Ready for the Show

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:44:53 GMT

The northwest corner of Trafalgar Square in London features the Fourth Plinth, originally built in the 19th century for the purpose of erecting a statue of William IV which never actually went up. Ever since, debate has raged over what to put there (with the usual answer being "nothing"), and for the past ten years, that has led to occasional temporary art installations.

Currently, the Fourth Plinth is being taken up by an art project called One & Other, conceived by Antony Gormley, where a different applicant goes onto the Plinth every hour from July 6 to October 14. They can do whatever they want there, as long as it's legal, and they can take anything up with them, as long as they carry it themselves.

If you go to the project's official website, you can watch a live webstream of whoever is on the Plinth at the moment. (As I write this, a grammar school student is talking on her mobile phone and writing stuff on a stand she brought with her, trying to get spectators to play Hangman.) Each person's hour is archived online for posterity.

After I found out about this (which I thought was rather cool), I started poking around to find out more, and occasionally checking into the live feed to see what was going on...so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered someone I knew had already taken part!

My friend Larina Alick was the designated Plinther from 9-10 AM on September 4, and she dubbed her hour a "Demonstration of Procrastination." Larina is originally from Queensland, but I met her on my (first) trip to Melbourne, and we stayed in touch through her (first) move to London. Seeing her in this particular context had an extra bit of personal resonance, since she and I brought in the year 2000 together in Trafalgar Square.

As I mentioned, you can watch her entire hour online for yourselves. I found the whole thing very entertaining, and Larina remains as awesome as ever.

You're All Invited Back Next Week to This Locality

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:51:35 GMT

Trying to make sure Winnipeg doesn't prove to be a massive letdown during Kimberly's visit has yielded better results lately than it did last week--thanks in no small part to the excellent feedback on my original entry mentioning it, along with offline input from a variety of local sources. :)

Many thanks to everyone who was able to contribute.

Amongst the possible events Kimberly will not miss are the artistic mash-up known as Cirque de la Symphonie, a concert by "multi-ethnic Gypsy punk band" Gogol Bordello, A Maze in Corn ("Manitoba's Original Corn Maze!"), and the photography exhibit Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Oh, and I was able to find a curling bonspiel we can go to that weekend. ;)

Having mentioned all this, Kimberly (rightly) pointed out that I needn't feel obligated to schedule the trip down to the second--which is good, because I was already dangerously close to pulling a Danny Tanner with my Itinerary of Fun, when hanging out is also a great way to spend one's time. (It's not as if I expect any similar amount of planning when I visit someone, after all.)

On a more leisurely cultural note, then, can someone with more knowledge of such matters give me a rundown of some candies that exist in Canada but not the United States? A glowing reference to this elsewhere in the blogosphere reminded me that (for example) Americans mean something different when they talk about Smarties...

Everything to Prove, Nothing in My Way

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:33:18 GMT

So far, my efforts at finding local events of interest for Kimberly's upcoming visit to Winnipeg have proven to be an exercise in unfortunate timing. :/

Amongst the events Kimberly will miss by less than a week are the Flashlight Vigil at Lower Fort Garry (and the end of the regular season there, actually), an appearance by a mentalist at The Park Theatre, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the opening of the theatre season with 5 O'Clock Bells at the MTC Warehouse, the poetry series Speaking Crow at Aqua Books, and even the uniquely local City of Winnipeg Giveaway Weekend.

Well, at least Zombieland opens while she's here...

Recordatio, Identidem

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:21:40 GMT

As I do each year to mark this anniversary, I'll point you to my entry on 9/11 from three years ago, if you're curious about my memories of the event and my thoughts on its aftermath.

Feel free to comment there with your own thoughts if you wish--I invited that sort of feedback at the time, and the invitation still holds.

I certainly feel better about the state of the world in general, and the United States in particular, than I did at this time last year. The change in American leadership has led to an important shift in tone and focus, and for that I'm grateful.

We Make the Whole World Dirty and We Have a Real Good Time

smackdab@gmail.com — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:44:42 GMT

You had to know this was coming (as it were), but in watching Season Two of The Original Series, there was even more potentially homoerotic innuendo to be found than what I'd encountered with the first season.

Because of that, it was harder (so to speak) to narrow down the most suggestive selections and form a proper list. I kept it up, though, and after a bit of a push and some concerted effort, I finished it off, so I celebrate the official 43rd anniversary of Star Trek by giving you:

Top Ten Unusual Slashy Lines (TOS Season Two Edition)

[As with the previous list, "unusual" means that no Kirk/Spock lines were included.]

10) Kirk/Mudd: "Is that the way you're going to do it, Mudd?"

9) Kirk/Garrovick: "Oh, Ensign, meet me in my quarters when you've cleaned up."

8) Kirk/McCoy/Scott/Chekov/Apollo: "If we can wear him out, overwork him, that might do it."

7) McCoy/Kirk: "Just lie there and be happy you're alive."

6) Scott/Kirk: "The best we can do is to maintain thrust against the pull and hold our position."

5) Jones/Bartender: "You won't find a finer stone anywhere."

4) Kirk/Planet-Killer: "I intend to get a lot closer. I'm going to ram her right down that thing's throat!"

3) Chekov/Chekov: "Take off your shirt, Chekov! Roll over, Chekov! Breathe deeply, Chekov!"

2) Sargon/Kirk: "We left our seed behind us."

...and the most unusual slashy line of the season:

1) Chekov/Kirk: "This is going to kill our romance."

Once more, Kirk clearly dominates (to coin a phrase), and that habit is sure to continue when Season Three gets a look...

Then again, it's possible that Kirk just loves a mountain instead.

You Could Be Happy There on Earth

smackdab@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:33:01 GMT

Despite my managing to make it through Season One of Star Trek: The Original Series before the new movie came out, my episode-watching pace quickly dropped off after it opened, and I'd gone several weeks without moving past "The Deadly Years," which happens to be the exact halfway point of the series.

The combination of an abundance of free time with a Labour Day weekend Star Trek marathon on Space to provide inspiration, however, pushed me to pick up the gauntlet again and finish off Season Two, where more creative decisions inspired by real-world production issues seemed prominent.

Although TOS never went to 23rd-century Earth (the closest we got was a distant, illusory view of the city of Mojave in the original pilot, "The Cage"), several episodes dealt with time travel into Earth's past, and there seemed to be all sorts of reasons to go to planets that were "much like your Earth." Trying to go for a sense of plausibility, the show codified this tendency by inventing terms like the Class M designation and Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development to explain it away.

Where Season One had started the trend by featuring an exact duplicate of Earth in "Miri," Season Two was all about themed planets: Hallowe'en World! Greek Mythology World! Roman World! Gangster World! Nazi World! Weird Quasi-Cold War World! Season Three would continue this pattern somewhat (with such winners as Native American World), but it was the second season which really embraced it.

This seems fitting for a season whose finale was appropriately titled "Assignment: Earth," another time travel episode that served as a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff series set on Earth in the present day. It's interesting to speculate on what such a series might've been like (and John Byrne did just that in a recent comic book series), but the alternate Star Trek universe that would've resulted from that development in the franchise would probably be virtually unrecognisable to us.

Speaking of alternate universes, Season Two also featured "Mirror, Mirror" and its evil take on the characters we know and love, leading to decades of further development and speculation on the Mirror Universe (not to mention many an evil-goatee reference in popular culture). Onscreen, at least, Mirror Earth has never been properly visited, either.

'Cause You're There for Me, Too

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:33:23 GMT

We've talked about the possibility for years already, but my very good friend Kimberly (whom I've mentioned in various contexts, including her role as co-founder of Regator, which I've also talked about before) has only just now finished booking her trip to visit me here in Winnipeg! :)

I'm ecstatic about this, of course, but also extremely nervous.

Winnipeg is at its best during July and August (and I feel that the ideal time to visit is during the Fringe), so I've generally had people come during those months, and I worry that there isn't enough of interest for even a first-time visitor after the summer festivals have come and gone--no Fringe, no FolkFest, no Folklorama, just the autumnal city itself. Other than the likelihood of some ghost tourism, I have no idea what Kimberly and I will do when she gets here.

Thus, I turn to you, Winnipeggers and past visitors to this noble city, for advice and reassurance.

Kimberly will be here the first weekend of October, already a desert where any interesting concerts or other events are concerned. :/ I would very much appreciate any insight at all from those in the know as to what leaves a good impression for people coming here in the off-season, as it were.

Some awesome specific advice would include vegetarian restaurant options (the place doesn't have to be entirely vegetarian, just feature some good meat-free menu items), anywhere we can check out (and maybe even try out?) some curling by then, and where I should go to shop for some new home decor (as it occurs to me that the apartment's looking a little bare at the moment).

Thanks in advance for your help...

He Never Gives Up, He's Always There

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:27:19 GMT

If you haven't already, you should definitely check out "The Ballad of G.I. Joe," written by Daniel Strange & Kevin Umbricht and featuring an all-star cast, including a brief but welcome appearance by Alan Tudyk:

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Isn't it sad that The Rise of Cobra has far less appeal for me than this does, especially where the casting is concerned?

It's Time to Raise the Curtain

smackdab@gmail.com — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:56:39 GMT

Despite my ambivalent feelings about Winnipeg, there are times when I really love being here, and I feel like this city is never better than it is during the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.

(Yes, yes, they're on Twitter as well...)

Even though I didn't catch nearly as many shows as I have in other years (and nowhere near the number I would've wanted to), I'm happy to say I didn't see a single stinker. One highlight worth mentioning right off the top was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, adapted by local Luke Falconer from the memoir of the same name by Dave Eggers, which stripped down the plot of the book a lot but (thankfully) maintained its tone:

(I really wish my friend Kimberly had been here to take in that show, as she is a huge fan of Eggers in general and said book in particular...)

Other highlights of what I did see include Inviting Desire: A Theatrical Aphrodisiac by Eleanor O'Brien and Dance Naked Productions (not every Fringe show features a triple-penetration story); Breakdance for Solo Cello by Solid State Breakdance (we got served...a really awesome performance); Pig: A Peep Show of Forbidden Acts from the Farm by Cowgirl Opera (perhaps the eleven walkouts at the performance I attended should've taken the show's writeup and the fact it was in a strip club at face value); Schoolhouse Rock Live! by Small Nest Productions (does exactly what it says on the tin, though that bill up on Capitol Hill may not be so applicable to the Canadian kids); and Raunch by Alice Nelson and Jacqueline Russell, inspired by Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (here's a trailer for it).

This only scratches the surface of what the Fringe had to offer, of course, and there were many more shows I wanted to see but couldn't, such as Lysistrata and The Importance of Being Earnest, both by the Eyewitness Theatre Company; Heebs and Dweebs by Amy Salloway, which I feel especially bad about missing because tinkerspink had recommended it after seeing the show in Ottawa; She's Not There by New-York-to-Winnipeg transplant Alix Sobler; Take You with Me by Aspen Switzer; the remounts of Virtual Solitaire by Dawson Nichols and 52 Pick-Up by perennial Fringe favourite TJ Dawe and Rita Bozi (the current movie (500) Days of Summer sounds so similar to the latter that I feel like Dawe should sue somebody); Like Father, Like Son? Sorry. by Chris Gibbs (whose last performance was "cancelled due to excessive hilarity"); Fidel Castro's Guide to Internet Dating by Adi Sara Kreindler; and...good grief, this is getting to be a long paragraph.

Suffice it to say that what doesn't get seen at the Fringe is always a source of regret.

On the bright side, I did manage to convince my brother to take in a couple of shows with me...and to think, it only took fifteen years of cajoling to get him to the Fringe.

Even though they lacked any true Fringe connection, one of the non-performative highlights of the Fringe for me was unexpectedly meeting and hanging out with a bunch of puppeteers from Walking with Dinosaurs--including Mat McCoy, who also worked on Farscape as an operator for both Rygel and Pilot, and was quite happy to share some tales from the set. :)

Lest you think that would prove to be my last genre encounter at the festival, there was actually a tie-in writing connection, too! While talking to actress Dee Watson on the last night, I discovered that she is friends with Paul Dale Smith, author of the Seventh Doctor/Ace novel Heritage and the Tenth Doctor/Martha novel The Many Hands (amongst other Doctor Who tie-in material)...which was a weird and coincidental thing to learn, since I wasn't exactly looking for anything fannish at the time.

That's the great thing about the Winnipeg Fringe, though--there are so many random things to encounter, in and out of the performance venues. You can start out one night talking passionately about the world of theatre in a pub when all of a sudden, a spontaneous Eighties Dance Party breaks out, followed by a rousing game of Intercourse-Handjob-Farts (a variation on Rock-Paper-Scissors developed by the aforementioned Luke Falconer...I'm sure you can figure it out), before ending up in another conversation where you staunchly defend your favourite critical theorist, without missing a beat.

Twelve days never feel like enough.

Those Dreams Have Remained and They've Turned Around

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:29:48 GMT

Having spent the past couple of Canada Days dwelling on fictional Canadian pop stars and Heritage Minutes, I find myself thinking more this year about the vagaries of Winnipeg's specific identity...

Canadians are a needy lot to begin with, constantly depending on external validation to justify their own existence. A Canadian can achieve any form of success you can think of, but they haven't really made it until they've achieved that success elsewhere--usually in the United States.

We celebrate our actors and musicians only when they become American successes, and hold up our authors higher once they're noticed internationally (and often hold up authors as our own when they've moved here from elsewhere, or conversely have left Canada years ago). We don't even feel good about our music unless we can get Barack Obama to listen to it, and it turns out that living abroad actually makes you more Canadian. I agree that being worldly is never a bad thing, but the very fact that we have that back-and-forth debate--how much distance from Canada is enough, and how much is too much?--is quintessentially Canadian.

Winnipeg is a microcosm of that paradox.

Those of us in or from The Peg can be fiercely defensive of our city, and yet there's a part of us that never actually feels good until our feelings are backed up by people elsewhere. (Even the President Obama connection persists...hey, did you know the White House playground structure uses parts from a Manitoba company?) We're so desperate to prove that Winnipeg is incredibly cool that we'll compile a video montage of pop culture references just to show we "exist" outside our perimeter:

(What's that? They didn't seek out enough references? Don't worry, the same company made a second montage.)

I really do love living in Winnipeg and having it as my hometown. I like having people visit, especially in the summer, and I've defended my choice to stay here many times as I've watched the Brain Drain continue and others have argued that I should seek out greener pastures myself.

I can't help but wonder sometimes, though, whether I'm just doing that so I don't end up feeling like a townie.

There are certainly frustrations about Winnipeg culture, beyond the stereotypes about the weather. We seem somehow averse to any significant city development that isn't urban sprawl (as easily evidenced by comparing the Winnipeg skyline to the relatively nearby Minneapolis skyline, considering the latter's similarity in metropolitan population). Much like Hill Valley, once the big mall(s) was/were built out in the suburbs, all of the downtown business evaporated, and we've been unable to bring any vitality back to it, despite constant debates about how that might be done.

It must appear strange to outsiders when something that should be universally appealing, like a national museum devoted to human rights, is still met with complaints from some corners, and there are no less than four different unofficial websites devoted to transit issues in Winnipeg because we can't get Rapid Transit off the ground after decades of talking about it. I'm not sure who these people are, but they come out of the woodwork whenever anything at all is proposed in the city--even something as simple as a restaurant patio or the demolition of an unoccupied building--and complain until things either drag on for years or just stall completely, because some Winnipeggers can never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Things have gotten to the point now that the arrival of IKEA in Winnipeg is a huge news story--probably because we're just so surprised to see something like that actually going forward locally.

Winnipeg often lives in a culture of nostalgia, which is most likely the main reason this tendency crops up time and again. The city clings to the imagined glory days of the past, wanting to recapture that victorious feeling but somehow also feeling like any significant change to our landscape from what came before would take it away. The clash between this imaginary past and what some imagine for our future leads to a weird sort of stasis, even as we flock to YouTube channels devoted to old local television clips and perpetually pine for a return of the NHL to our market.

Remember how awesome we were back then?

Local artists are well aware of these contradictions, and Winnipeg's love/hate relationship with itself, as a lot of art that's about Winnipeg tends to explore these issues. Perhaps the most well-known recent example is Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, where Maddin literally creates a mythology out of the city's history, but any time Winnipeg plays itself, there's a constant struggle with the past--how to get away from it without letting go, how to reinvent yourself without leaving the city--and all forms of art that come out of here show evidence of these things we can't stand about Winnipeg but feel are intrinsic to our identity.

We're constantly encouraged to speak up and invite people back, all while we talk about these mixed feelings amongst ourselves, with no true resolution in sight.

I'm from here and I have no idea what the answers are, as I struggle with all of these issues myself on a personal level--the lack of anonymity, the inability to get away from your past, the concern that your ambitions can only be fulfilled by moving away, the knowledge that you'll eventually run into your ex at the worst possible moment because there are only ever two degrees of separation around here. Obviously, I'm one of the many people willing to bitch and moan and sing the praises of Winnipeg, all at the same time.

I know that Winnipeg will always be a part of me, but is that really all there is to this city?

It's Time to Play the Music

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:04:40 GMT

When I woke up today and saw that the nonstop news coverage was still on, I realised it had actually happened.

Michael Jackson died.

He was the first musician I can remember really being a fan of who wasn't specifically making children's music. It was all mixed together in my young mind at the time, of course--original artists and Mini Pops covers held about the same status on my record shelf--but listening to Thriller on vinyl and cassette tape, I managed to make the distinction, because I could tell that Michael Jackson was a Big Deal.

That was also when I started to watch music videos (probably on Video Hits) and truly understand what a music video was. Once again, the videos for songs like "Billie Jean" and the all-time classic "Thriller" (a video so long it has end credits!) are what made that clear to me. Say what you like about that album and that video, but their enduring influence cannot be overstated.

So many of my earliest memories of pop music and popular culture in general are tied to Michael Jackson that it's hard for me to think of one without associating the other.

There've been so many iconic figures lost just in the last little while (Bea Arthur, David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett), but Jackson has already drowned them all out, the only one who could slow down the entire Internet. I imagine this will be another Princess Diana moment, where this is the main event any of us remember about this month in the future--yet another legendary entertainer gone too soon.

For all of the excesses and general weirdness that Michael Jackson became known for over the years (Is it too early to make an Elvis comparison?), my main inclination last night and this morning has been to just listen to his songs, concentrating on that golden period from Off the Wall to Dangerous when (in the realm of song and dance, anyway) it seemed like he could do no wrong.

That's how I choose to remember him.

The Man, He Ain't So Hard to Understand

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:18:57 GMT

I'm not exactly a fan of slash fiction (that's a longer discussion for another day), but in the midst of rewatching Season One of Star Trek: The Original Series--with its euphemistic talk of "thinking with your glands" and "unusually strong female drives"--I couldn't help but notice that certain pieces of dialogue seemed closer to homoerotic innuendo than I had previously remembered.

That may just be Pride Month talking, but either way, I give you:

Top Ten Unusual Slashy Lines (TOS Season One Edition)

[N.B. For the purposes of this list, "unusual" means that I didn't include any Kirk/Spock lines in the mix.]

10) Kirk/Christopher: "Feel free to look around, Captain. Don't touch anything, but I think you'll find it interesting."

9) Kirk/McCoy: "He's all yours, plum."

8) Kirk/McCoy: "Sometimes, pain can drive a man harder than pleasure. I'm sure you know that, Doctor."

7) McCoy/Kirk: "That's a boy, keep it up. Work up a little sweat, it'll do you good."

6) Kirk/Kirk: "I have to take him back inside myself."

5) Spock/McCoy: "I had a very strong reaction. My first sight was the face of Doctor McCoy bending over me."

4) Scott/Kirk: "Any way we do it, it means a mighty rough ride."

3) Kirk/McCoy: "He wants to get me down there, afraid I won't swallow it."

2) Cogley/Kirk: "I could get you off." followed by "You can pull out if you want to."

...and the most unusual slashy line of the season:

1) Landru/Kirk: "Landru is gentle. You will come."

This may yet become a (semi-)regular feature, depending on what Season Two has to offer...

There Is Lots to Doodle-Do

smackdab@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:04:36 GMT

When you visit The History of Things That Never Were, you'll find a set of anchor links at the top of the page allowing you to jump to one of the site's timeline sections, which are divided by medium (Television, Movies, Books, Games, and Comics).

After mentioning in my ruminations on the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series that I was rearranging the Star Trek chronology work, though, I realised I never really highlighted the fact that each of the sub-sections under those media has an anchor, too.

At the risk of blatant Google-baiting, here are all the specific sub-sections on the site, in order of appearance:

Star Trek Timelines
Doctor Who Timelines
Highlander Timelines
Battlestar Galactica Timelines
Robotech Timelines
Gundam Timelines
Star Wars Timelines
The Lord of the Rings Timelines
The Wheel of Time Timelines
Cthulhu Mythos Timelines
Wold Newton Timelines
Dungeons & Dragons Timelines
DC Comics Timelines
Marvel Comics Timelines

I've managed to do some tweaking here and there on the site lately, but there is a great deal of work left to be done to bring it up to a level I'd find satisfactory at this point...

Tracking down dead links alone is starting to take up a lot of my time devoted to the site--and between the shutdown of AOL Hometown late last year and the impending demise of GeoCities, this problem is only getting worse. (Timelines hosted at GeoCities make up over 10% of the total links on the site.) It's always sad to see a good timeline disappear, but checking links and thus updating the site properly is a normal part of site maintenance--which in this case means acknowledging how the Web has changed, and having to let go of certain sites which no longer exist. :/ After all, it's counterproductive to have dead links just sitting there, as it undermines the reliability of the site itself.

(Ironically, there are probably just as many dead links to the site out there now as there are dead links on the page itself, since previous URL redirects no longer work...even though it's been at its current URL for the past seven years, or the majority of its existence.)

Certain people have also told me I should "build the brand" by incorporating some sort of social-networking component into the site (or at least its visitors), such as a dedicated blog, but I have my doubts that I'd be able to sustain a dual blogging effort on top of everything else, so I've even (*shudder*) thought about using Twitter for people to follow site updates more closely.

Whatever I decide in this regard, it would be nice to find a way for the site to keep up with the times, Web-wise, and eventually move away from that lovely 1997 design aesthetic. (A long time ago, lampbane came up with a really nice potential redesign which I still have, so I may yet use that as a launching point.)

Then again, there's something fitting about an "historical" website that evokes the online past...

Happy and Gay Like You Wouldn't Believe

smackdab@gmail.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:20:35 GMT

I did indeed make it to Winnipeg's Pride March on Sunday (as promised earlier), and I'm glad I went, on what turned out to be the first weekend of the year for completely decent-without-qualifiers weather. :) I'm actually pleased to have some sunburn on my neck and shoulders, because it means this "summer" thing everyone talks about is more than just a rumour...

Given the warm, sunny weather, the turnout was great, and I saw a number of people I knew along the way--but fewer than I expected. :/ I'm not sure what's up with that.

Most of my marching time was spent seeking out a float with decent music to walk beside, and it was a decidedly mixed bag until I found a winner in the "Adam and Steve" float. ;)

After that, it was just a matter of hanging around Memorial Park, watching some of the requisite song-and-dance acts, and checking out the display booths before heading home...

Speaking of which, you know the demographics have shifted at an event like this when companies like Investors Group and Sears Portrait Studio make an official appearance. :}

I Grab My Books and I Give Myself a Look

smackdab@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:03:12 GMT

Before I completely neglect to mention it, Zack Morris made an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week to update us all on what he's been up to since his days at Bayside:

I was surprised at the attention to continuity in his interview, referencing everything from Zack's (impossible) SAT score to his Wedding in Las Vegas--even addressing the retcon of Good Morning, Miss Bliss (the precursor to Saved by the Bell where some of its characters debuted), which was set in Indiana--and I have to say that The Roots can rock out that theme music rather well. :) It's also a little disturbing how easy it is to make Mark-Paul Gosselaar look the part again...

I'm glad to see Zack's kept his brick of a mobile phone (no text messaging, alas), but sad to learn of his divorce from Kelly Kapowski...although of course, that all depends on whether this appearance could be considered canon. ;)

Straight Ahead and On the Track Now

smackdab@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:24:56 GMT

Having missed out on Winnipeg's Pride March over the past couple of years (for a number of reasons), I want to be doubly sure I make it this Sunday...

In the meantime, the status of various GLBT issues in North America is the same mixed bag as it was at this time last year. One (pleasantly) shocking turn of events was discovering that President Obama actually proclaimed June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month:

I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

There are plenty of places in the States where discrimination and prejudice in this area need to be turned back, too. While same-sex couples there are still struggling to get the same immigration rights and adoption rights as their heterosexual counterparts, and some public schools are blocking pro-GLBT websites, marriage rights continue to be a primary battleground--with the good news out of New Hampshire seemingly cancelled out by the upholding of the same-sex marriage ban in California (and you all know how I feel about that).

Lest we Canadians look upon those problems and pat ourselves on the back for being so much more enlightened, I would remind you that Alberta just passed a law allowing parents to pull their children out of class when lessons on sexual orientation are being taught.

Things might be all right where I'm sitting, but they continue to be worse elsewhere--for our neighbours to the south as well as so many other parts of the world.

And that's why I need to show my support at Pride this year.

They've Given You a Number and Taken Away Your Name

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:32:15 GMT

When I got home last night, I had exactly one message on my answering machine. The male voice was unidentified. Here it is, in its entirety:

Don't drink, don't smoke...
[muffled response]
Yeah, no, she wants to but she will hate it. Close, close up. If she had one shot, I guarantee you, half of it and her head would be going. I'm bugging you, because she's never drank, if she took a shot--
[muffled response]
No, if she ever took something that was very strong to drink, half the drink and her head would start to go. And you've never drank before?
[muffled response]
Evil, evil spirits, we call it. Alcohol.
[chuckling to himself]
[click]

So...did someone seriously just accidentally drunk-dial me and proceed to describe how someone else couldn't handle their liquor without losing it?

No One's Gonna Bend or Break Me

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:13:57 GMT

Someone on the TrekBBS forum recently resurrected the thread devoted to Strange New Worlds 10, which I hadn't seen in quite a while, in order to offer up a story-by-story review of the anthology.

I appreciated that--so many people who review collections never bother to cover every story therein--even though that person gave "You Are Not in Space" a middle-of-the-road assessment:

Good, readable Hoshi story. I was kind of hoping for a more rousing conclusion.

On a related note, I had written letters to each of the book retailers in Winnipeg before the new movie came out to let them know about the existence of SNW 10, basically working the "local author does good" angle in connection to the Star Trek franchise and hoping they might stock up on it again.

Over a month has passed since I mailed those off, so I decided to start looking into how effective my (small) efforts at marketing had been...and while I haven't been able to check everywhere yet (both McNally Robinson locations will need a visit, for starters), Chapters and its affiliated bookstores allow you to search for titles at all locations in a given area, so I know that as of this week, there were seven new copies of Strange New Worlds 10 available in the system. :)

I'm not saying this would work for every market or every Star Trek tie-in writer, and some authors have been luckier than others (daytonward, for example, had a lot of support from Paramount's Kansas City publicity machine), but with a lot of debate right now about what Pocket Books could or couldn't have done to promote the line in the wake of the film, I felt I should take matters into my own hands.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #220 646 in Books "Only 4 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)."
Amazon Kindle Sales Rank: #42 662 in Kindle Store
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #193 725 in Books "Only 3 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)."

Every Day Is a Different Trial

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:23:39 GMT

I'm sure you're all eager to read my copious thoughts on Star Trek (well, maybe not everyone), but because of a number of upheavals in my personal life this week, I'm not really feeling up to it.

With luck, I'll endeavour to get back up to speed so I can post something about it in the next week or two.

Baby, Remember My Name

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:57:40 GMT

The most commonly reported statistic on Star Trek tie-in fiction is that its readership is generally about 1-2% of the larger audience for the franchise as a whole.

In the hope that a rising tide raises all boats, and a larger audience for the new movie equals a larger audience for the tie-ins, let's move some paper and list the most recent Star Trek outings by the people on my friendslist:

Emily P. Bloch (deltagrl) most recently contributed to the Star Trek literary universe with the short story "Shadowed Allies" in Strange New Worlds 9, edited by Dean Wesley Smith with Elisa J. Kassin and Paula M. Block.

Marc Carlson (marccarlson) most recently contributed the short story "The Immortality Blues" in Strange New Worlds 9.

Keith R.A. DeCandido (kradical) most recently contributed A Singular Destiny, the first followup to the Star Trek: Destiny crossover trilogy. He also edited Mere Anarchy, which collects the six-eBook miniseries "covering 30 years of TOS history" as a trade paperback, and wrote the short story "Family Matters," which appears in Shards and Shadows, a Mirror Universe anthology edited by Margaret Clark and Marco Palmieri.

Allyn Gibson (tiggerallyn) most recently contributed the short story "Make-Believe" in Constellations, an anthology edited by Marco Palmieri which celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the original Star Trek.

Jim Johnson (ineti)--who was cool enough to pick me up an autographed copy of an entirely different media tie-in anthology, Doctor Who: The Quality of Leadership, at last year's Shore Leave--most recently contributed the short story "A Terrible Beauty" in Shards and Shadows.

Gerri Leen (gerrileen) most recently contributed the short story "The Smell of Dead Roses" in Strange New Worlds 10, edited by Dean Wesley Smith with Paula M. Block.

David Mack (infinitydog) wrote the epic Destiny trilogy (consisting of Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls), which really shook up the Star Trek universe in print. He also wrote the short story "For Want of a Nail" in Shards and Shadows, and his next Star Trek novel will be Precipice, part of the Star Trek: Vanguard series he co-created with Marco Palmieri, which occurs concurrently with The Original Series.

Steve Mollmann (steve_mollmann) most recently contributed the bookend short stories "Meet with Triumph and Disaster" and "Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You," both with Michael Schuster (michaelschuster), in The Sky's the Limit, an anthology edited by Marco Palmieri which celebrates the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Scott Pearson (scottpearson), who gave me a really cool shout-out last week, most recently contributed the short story "Among the Clouds" in The Sky's the Limit.

Amy Sisson (amysisson) most recently contributed the short story "'Twould Ring the Bells of Heaven" in The Sky's the Limit.

Paul C. Tseng (exculpatory) most recently contributed the short story "A Dish Served Cold" in Strange New Worlds 10.

Dayton Ward (daytonward) last contributed Open Secrets (whose story was co-created with Kevin Dilmore), the most recent novel in the Vanguard series. They also wrote the short story "Ill Winds" in Shards and Shadows and Things Fall Apart, the first story in Mere Anarchy.

...and of course, my last appearance was "You Are Not in Space" in Strange New Worlds 10.

All of the titles I just listed are also available in paperless formats such as Amazon Kindle, so let's move some electrons as well. ;)

I know some upcoming Star Trek books have been pushed back to 2010, friendslist, but have I missed any of your items coming out in 2009...?

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #65 208 in Books "Only 2 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)."
Amazon Kindle Sales Rank: #17 876 in Kindle Store
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #187 130 in Books

An Earthling's a Creature as Plain as Can Be

smackdab@gmail.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:52:50 GMT

I've been getting more and more wrapped up in anticipation for Star Trek over the past few weeks, reading or watching everything I can connected to the movie (while, paradoxically, trying to keep myself from being completely spoiled)--whether that means the official clips released so far; Countdown, the official comic prequel to the film, and the also-connected comic "When Worlds Collide" in Wired magazine; or even following the really elaborate international Alternate Reality Game created for viral marketing purposes.

I've also been trying to figure out how I might rearrange the Star Trek Timelines at The History of Things That Never Were before the film comes out next week...

All this is, of course, in the knowledge that I'll probably need some sort of online blackout at the end of next week to safely avoid those spoilers.

Besides all that, I've been getting thoroughly into that old-school frame of mind by rewatching The Original Series (in production order, natch). I seriously doubt I'll make it through the whole thing in the next eight days, but I've already managed to finish off Season One, and some stuff jumped out at me this time around.

First off, despite the show's "seek out new life" mandate, many episodes deal with either completely human antagonists ("Mudd's Women," "Dagger of the Mind," "The Conscience of the King," "Court Martial," even "Space Seed"), essentially human antagonists ("The Return of the Archons," "A Taste of Armageddon"), or non-speaking phenomena ("The Naked Time," "This Side of Paradise"). There are very few episodes which feature "new civilisations" at all, and even the new species we do meet are usually represented by only one of its members ("The Man Trap," "The Squire of Gothos," "Arena," "The Devil in the Dark") for most or all of the episode in question.

I realise the real-world production reasons for all this, but it's still striking to see these patterns all at once.

It's also worth noting, given how much continuity has accumulated in the franchise over the years, that there are some things in this very first season of Star Trek which have huge implications (the First Federation, the Shore Leave Planet, even the famous Guardian of Forever), but are never so much as mentioned again in any live-action series.

In fact, most of these episodes don't even have indirect sequels in subsequent seasons/series, so it's surprising that the franchise is often accused of constantly rehashing past plot points...

We Won't Get by with Those Same Old Ways

smackdab@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:05:45 GMT

One of the great drawbacks of the Star Trek franchise over the years has been its failure to acknowledge that GLBT identities were a part of its utopian future...

At first, that didn't make it terribly different from the rest of the television landscape, but as time went on and this reality was incorporated into other series--not just shows with a GLBT focus like Queer as Folk, but a lot of mainstream fare and even other genre shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who--without society falling apart, Star Trek started to seem overly conservative compared to its franchise neighbours, ignoring such expressions of equality when it could've been a trailblazer.

In a week when the good news out of Vermont can be mixed with this sort of continued idiocy, it would be nice to be able to point to some fictional examples from filmed Star Trek of GLBT humans (as opposed to some of the SF-analogy species they have shown) existing in the next few centuries...but thus far, there aren't any. :/ For many people, this seems to go against the series' portrayal of and advocacy for a better, united future for humanity as a whole.

Fortunately, the world of licenced Star Trek fiction has done quite a bit to make up for this shortcoming. A discussion on the TrekBBS forum about former franchise head honcho Rick Berman writing a memoir, and whether he might've been the cause of this lack of inclusion, led to this very cool thread about GLBT characters in Star Trek tie-ins. :)

If you're one of those people who wonder why you should bother reading the novels/comics when you could just be watching the episodes themselves, this is one of the more important reasons, from my perspective...sometimes, an official tie-in can provide what the official episodes lack.

Who Knows What Happens After Here?

smackdab@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:28:32 GMT

Since this year's edition of the limerick challenge seems to have interested absolutely no one, perhaps I should just change the subject. :/

I know I've had past issues with the Canadian treatment of the Doctor Who franchise, but all things considered, the CBC used to treat the show really well, especially back in the halcyon days of its first new series.

Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper did special interstitials for the Canadian audience, their website for the show had a lot of extra content (including the six-part documentary The Planet of the Doctor), and most importantly, they aired the complete episodes promptly--within a couple of weeks of their airing in the UK.

Although I realise the scheduling in particular had a lot to do with the NHL lockout going on at the time, I thought this sort of approach made sense for a network which was co-producing Doctor Who (as shown in its end credits), as the personal investment would motivate them to treat it properly.

By the fourth series, however, it became pretty clear that the CBC just wasn't interested anymore.

They'd already stopped airing Torchwood after its first series, which causes some confusion for the casual viewer whenever the two shows cross over, but at least that could be seen as an understandable business decision. (Even I think Doctor Who itself is a better fit on CBC than Torchwood.)

The frustrations kept building this year, though, with their decision not to air "Voyage of the Damned" at all (not even in the shoddy way they'd aired "The Runaway Bride"), which would definitely cause confusion when it was referenced later in Series 4, in episodes such as "Turn Left;" the network's general lack of advertising for the show; their delaying the series even further than in the past; and worst of all (as far as I'm concerned), cutting almost twenty minutes from "Journey's End" in order to fit that finale into a one-hour timeslot rather than giving it the time needed to air in an unedited form. (How dare you keep German Daleks from me, CBC!)

Given all of this, I shuddered to think at how long it would take for CBC to air "The Next Doctor," and what state that special would be in once it reached my television screen...so you can imagine my surprise when I started seeing commercials for it on Space instead.

For one thing, they were Doctor Who commercials, which I'd gotten used to not seeing, and it looked like the network was plugging the show pretty hard; but beyond that, I was surprised to see the show have any presence on Space in the first place, especially with a commercial saying The Doctor was "back where he belongs." Space had shown some Hartnell and Troughton episodes of the original series for a while in the network's early days, but had encountered abysmal ratings for them, with reports that the test pattern was getting better numbers than Doctor Who was. This led to Space having what was described as a "scorched earth" policy towards the show, where they made it sound like they would never try to air it again.

I expressed my shock on Space's forum, and Space producer Mark Askwith was actually cool enough to come on and address my surprise directly. From his description, it sounds like Space might want to pick up the new series in the future, if the CBC is no longer involved.

You'd think that my strong feelings on the matter would mean that I've watched "The Next Doctor" already, since it aired here two weeks ago...but you'd be wrong. :} I promised I would watch it with xandersgirl, so my copy recorded off Space is still waiting for us.

Despite often being semi-spoiled for Doctor Who (which is unavoidable, to a certain extent, if I'm going to be online at all), I'm surprisingly uninformed on what happens in "The Next Doctor," and my initial assumptions might turn out to be rather off-base, but I hope I get a chance to watch it before getting any more foggy impressions of its plot from things like avatars and mentions on non-Who websites--especially with another special just around the corner.

(I already miss the potentially misleading headlines like "Morrissey to Star in Doctor Who Christmas Special," because I usually just pictured this as a result. ;))

In the meantime, there are a few things related to Doctor Who which can tide me over. Thanks to a suggestion from xandersgirl, I've been catching the end of the Fourth Doctor's run on BBC Kids, and I have a backlog of Doctor Who comics from IDW to read through for my Tenth Doctor fix. I can check out how a fan film might tackle the series, or how it might look as an anime or crossed over with Star Trek.

I'm also relieved that the K-9 spinoff currently filming in Australia might actually fit into the existing continuity of the series somewhat better than it initially seemed...

If you're not completely sick of me talking about this franchise, you should take a look at "Music of the Spheres," a special mini-episode from last year (presumably set between "Journey's End" and "The Next Doctor") which tied into The Proms at the Royal Albert Hall:

I watched "Voyage of the Damned" on YouTube shortly after it aired in the UK--which proved to be a very good idea, in retrospect--but I hope that with its new precedent, Space might now continue to air future specials (and perhaps the next series proper) on Canadian television, without the cuts the CBC was becoming well-known for making prior to broadcast...

Otherwise, this might be the only option left for Canadians to keep up with The Doctor's travels.