A few weeks back, I saw the new Star Trek movie and left it with some serious questions about what it meant for the Trek universe I have been a fan of since I was a kid. ( New movie spoilers )

So I have seen the new Trek movie. With my flist abounding with spoilers and rave reviews, and me needing to de-friend trekicons that I've belonged to since I joined LJ, it seemed a good idea.

Plus, yesterday I managed to fiddle with my computer keyboard until I found the culprit causing the typing problem I was having, so I fixed that (for now), and could cancel my Genius Bar appointment allowing me to go to an early morning matinee.

So, to make a long story less long, I liked it. I am, of course, not without my issues. ( movie spoilers )

While looking at this on Amazon:

Lost and Philosophy: The Island Has Its Reasons

I was reminded of this:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale

Which lead me to doing a quick search, leading to titles like this, which leave one pondering (or, at the least, WTFing):

Bob Dylan and Philosophy
Hitchcock and Philosophy
iPod and Philosophy
Pink Floyd and Philosophy
Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy
Star Wars and Philosophy
The Beatles and Philosophy
The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy
The Philosophy of TV Noir
The Philosophy of the X-Files

Because really, if you're going to write a philosophy and pop culture book, you need a catchy subtitle:

24 and Philosophy: The World According to Jack
Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul
Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Knowledge Here Begins Out There
Family Guy and Philosophy: A Cure for the Petarded
Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts
House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies
Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!
The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real
More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded
Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing
South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today
South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating
Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant
Steven Spielberg and Philosophy: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Book
Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way
The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, the Witch, and the Worldview
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All
The Office and Philosophy: Scenes from the Unexamined Life
The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer
The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am
The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless
U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band

I've been "getting my geek on" over at coffeemakers the past few weeks, letting my viewage of BtVS season one inspire some essays in the good ol' ATPo style:

Vampires and the Clarity of Evil
Of Vampires and Souls
A(n Un)Natural History of Demons

Take a peek, and indulge your inner geek!

And of course, I had to get all philosophical about it.....

I don't do "favorites" memes because they flummox me. Don't ask me my favorite book, film, actress, actor, band, artist, or song. I can't choose among the ones that I like and I'll spend hours wringing my hands thinking I *need* to figure it out because other people seem to be able to list their favorites with such ease.

So I'm only ganking one of the memes I see going around. It's either that or start working on a new version of the Patient Event Timeline stored procedure, and it's too late in the day to do that.

So, ganked from cornerofmadness

Total number of fandoms I like: I have no idea. Sheesh, what a question. It assumes one can define "fandom" to begin with. Is it more than just watching the show/reading the books/seeing the films? Does it necessitate talking to other people about it (a) at all or (b) in other than a casual conversation at the water cooler? Does it necessitate reading/seeing/writing tie-in materials? Does it necessitate deep enthusiasm or just respect? *boggles*

My first fandom ever: Original Star Trek, in early '70's syndication. I didn't do public fandom stuff, I was just a little kid, but I watched all the episodes and later bought U.S.S. Enterprise blueprint/episode guide books and read some of the novel tie-ins until I figured out they could be contradicted by the films. I called myself a "Trekkie" (and no, not a "Trekker").

My most recent fandom: The L-Word, maybe? Again, I guess that depends on what you mean by "fandom". I like talking about the show with friends, introducing people to the show who haven't had the chance to see it.

Five fandoms that mean a lot to me: Star Trek (original *and* later series, esp DS9), BtVS (the show that introduced me to on-line fandom), AtS (the show I can't get out of my system), Harry Potter (just very cool), L Word.

Fandoms or not fandoms: I don't really talk to anyone about my interest in Highlander, Star Wars, or Anne Rice. But the first two of those in particular are very important to me. Are they not fandoms if I don't talk about them much to other people?

Some things philosophical on Star Wars:
Being a scattered collection of random personal musings on the Movies and their Prequels
I thought I had better just get over my performance anxiety and post this before everyone moves on to the next big fandom hoo-ha, be it the new Harry Potter book or the actual, no, we really mean it this time, it's official! premiere of "Serenity."

( Long-winded introduction ) And I liked it, for the most part. I fall soundly in the "good but flawed" category of (re)viewers.

So onto the details of that reaction.

( Quibbles: Spoilers for RotS )

( Other Sith stuff (spoilers) )

( Non-Sith-specific SW musings )

O.K., so I have a personal ad on-line, and it includes, among other things, several pictures of me, including this one (*points at icon*), which was part of my application to join the LJ community 2hot4philosophy. I am depicted there with Nietzsche's "The Genealogy of Morals" in hand. Anyway, in the particular on-line personals site where I have my ad, they have a long list of items with little check boxes you are supposed to click as "turn-ons" and "turn-offs". One of them is "power". I clicked "turn off" because, well, I don't like being bossed around. At all. And I'm not particularly into bossing.

But, so anyway, to make a long story less long, I get an intriguing response to my ad this morning which consists of nothing else but the observation,

"that intrigues me: an image of you with the geneology of morals--with power listed as a 'turn-off.' Do tell me more."

I'm trying to think of what to say back that will also intrigue (you know, as opposed to the boring true story above)

I guess the first question is, why did I pick my one and only Nietzsche book for my 2hot photo session, besides to be intriguingly enigmatic?


Question to fellow 2hot members: is it kosher to x-post this to 2hot4philosophy??

A question that I've been thinking about lately -

One thing I see people do a lot on internet posting boards is "Meta". We talk about communication, and specifically, our own communication with each other. We discuss kerfluffles and how they happen, we discuss the lack of verbal cues that make our internet communication more difficult. We talk about whether our choice of words is getting our point across to each other or not. We Meta a lot.

My Q is, do you Meta more on-line than you do off-line? Do you spend as much time talking about whether or not you're communicating with your friends and family in everyday life? Or is that something we do online just because we're trying to deal with a different medium of communication?




Oh, and ganked from a bunch 'o ATPo's:

For those of you who have met me in person...what was the thing that surprised you most about me when we first met? If you do this, post in your journal too.

This is a potential topic for my website, and I'm thinking about it because ljash said something interesting under one of my posts (I'm not going to link to it because it's in the spoiler post from last Friday):

( spoilers from AtS 5.17 & 5.19 )


PS. I'm thinking about posting this on ATPo, but I'm thinking it's already the topic of several threads that I haven't read all the way through. Would it be redundant?

**dlgood, it occurs to me that this might be the reason Buffy displays such a puzzling stubborness in "The Gift" we were talking about, e.g., not even being willing to say she would kill Dawn even if she was ultimately not asked to do so in the episode. In ME's "no compromise" model of the hero, the true hero would never even say they'd be anything less than heroic, much less do it. Or, in another example, it takes the slightly-less-heroic/more pragmatic hero (Giles) to kill Ben in that ep because Buffy refuses to compromise on her values.

I've been meaning to post on this topic for a while when bits and pieces of discussion plucked the strings of my thinking, but the topic in itself requires lots of thinking, so I've been putting it off.

( Somewhat rambly, somewhat organized thoughts on agnosticism, belief, the fantasy genre and the nature of the universe )

Cleanthes' words of wisdom over at the ATPo board:

If you don't think there's such a thing as a fundamentalist Atheist, and you claim to be atheist, then you are a fundamentalist atheist.

If you worship Skepticism without the slightest bit of skepticism over skepticism, then Ockham will haunt you.

As to the rest of his dialogue with Fresne, alas, I am too left-brained to follow all its intricacies.

A curse on my over-sized left brain!

I'm so glad we have these folks gracing our board.

I joined a community of Connor aficionados so I could take my (some say excessive and boring!) interest in this character elsewhere and save my friends from my non-stop nattering about him. ; ) ; )

But if anyone is interested in aforementioned nattering, I have just posted an essay in two parts (short, but too long for an LJ reply) at that community:

Connor: From Existentialist Character to Nihilist

Note: My goal is here is not to argue that either Angel or Spike is "The Vampire with a Soul" (VwaS), but simply to lay out everything that has been said about the VwaS in five seasons of the show. You draw your own conclusions.

( AtS spoilers S. 1 through 5.8 )

current film: 2001: A Space Odyssey

I wrote this as a comment in bhadrasvapna's journal (go check out her meme/poll here), but the exercise was so interesting, I wanted to repost my answer in my own journal.

( VampMasquerade )

It's very self-enlightening if you really give it some honest thought.




Note to self: Stay out of the Spike-Angel 'net wars. Stay out of the Spike-Angel 'net wars. Stay out of the Spike-Angel 'net wars. The way some fans tear down Angel and misinterpet his character in order to boost up Spike can only make your blood boil. Where's my meds???

Hey, check it out. My book reviews have chapters. I am da queen of essays.

Order of the Phoenix thoughts, with comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars

( Prologue )

( Harry Potter: Messiah )

( Umbrage with Umbridge )

( Promissory notes and pay-offs )

( Shadow-selves and better-selves )

And now I'm feeling just a little bereft... that marathon book read kept me occupied for a month. I guess it's time to head back to the library and find other stuff to read. That seems a very odd notion to me now, and I was a regular library-visitor as recently as August.

On the plus side, I can visit all the HP websites/LJ communities now and not have to worry about being spoiled!

Some Harry Potter thoughts, with topic links for your browsing convenience. 90% philosophy-free!

Thoughts on plot in books 1-4

( Deus ex machina )

( Conveniently overheard conversations )

( The upside of predictable plots )

Other random thoughts on Goblet of Fire

( HP and celebrity )

( The 600 page preface )

( Racist subtext? )

Prelimary thoughts on Order of the Phoenix

( Writing and voice )

Sometimes when I write stuff like this, I think, "God, I must really be on drugs."

( Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and two interpretations of Nietzsche's Superman )

But good drugs, right?



Deleted AtS discussion comments can be found here.

OK, I'm half way through "Chamber of Secrets" and, yes, I'll admit it: I am now a fan.

But is this a surprise? Not to me. The books are better than the movies, charming and entertaining and almost a perfect fit for the kind of fiction I look for: sci-fi or fantasy that takes place in our world, but reveals a secret segment of our world no ordinary person knows about (BtVS/Angel and Highlander are both like this). And it's a series, so that when I get that "so what happened next?" bug I can just pick up the next book. Or wait for the next book. And of course, I like books with complicated teen-aged protagonists/heroes. Don't ask me why. Connor Angel, John Connor, Luke Skywalker, Buffy Summers, Richie Ryan, Harry Potter.

Rowling has created a rich complex sub-culture/universe that, only half-way into the second book, rivals a full 11 seasons of BtVS and Angel. To crawl around in this woman's mind! I knew I was merrily in fandom land when I found myself looking for Harry Potter websites that resembled the Metaphysics section of my own ATPoBtVS. If I hadn't come across a clever and decent little reference site on my first search, I would have had to wrestle my inner metaphysician to the ground to keep her from starting a new website, All Things Philosophical in... well, you know.

I came to Harry Potter through the movies, so that might make me sympathetic to the movies, but I actually find it fascinating to compare the books and the movies. I'm the sort of person who enjoys the writer's and director's commentaries on movie and television show DVDs almost more than the original piece. It's interesting to see where the movie-makers cut corners, what they decide to chop out, what they decide to keep, and where they decide to make events go completely differently than the books in order to save time and resources.

But this is why the written word will never be replaced by film. The written word can go more places, and people are willing to give it more time than they'll sit through a film.

Rowling has given a fresh face to classic fantasy themes: the unwanted child, discovering a magical new world right under your nose, good versus evil, the mundane/poor/outsider kids vs. the popular/rich/insider kids, secret passageways, mystical animals, bubbling potions, spells, rituals, monsters, super powers, and the panged, panged pains of childhood/adolescence.

Now I will just have to find a way to deal with the fact that I like something that is immensely.... dare I use the word? Ugh!

Popular.

shudders Instead of people staring oddly at the front cover of the book I am reading on the bus, they smile nostalgically. I am not used to this. I'm so used to doing what comes naturally to me and finding myself the odd girl out.