A Short Food Commentary

Thankfully I've never had much of a weight problem. In spite of this I do read food news. And over the years, I've ignored a lot of it. There's more flip-flopping on dietary advice than there is on the presidential campaign trail!

Eggs. Eggs were said to be bad for you - they have cholesterol. Reading that as a kid, I knew there must be some information missing. My grandfather ate 2 eggs for breakfast every day and he died at age 83. I figure I'm ok with dying at age 83 so I have continued to eat eggs. Now, eggs are said to be good for you. I'm glad dieticians agree with my grandfather.

Salt. Salt is the cause of high blood pressure. Or you should drink it regularly when you exercise. Which is it? Me, I salt my food if I want to. Not too much.

Butter. I grew up eating petroleum-based magarine, thinking that was good for me? I'm surprised my toenails aren't plastic. My food tastes a lot better now that I cook with butter. Cows thank me too.

Today - the most shocking change of all - LARD!! I've been using vegetable shortening forever, even after learning that it contains saturated fats, because I thought there was no healthy alternative. I dimly recall my mom cooking with lard when I was very young but she was convinced that Crisco was good for you and she made the switch. But now I can make pie crust with lard. This is excellent news because, at long last, my pie crust will be flakier than hers (the true gold standard of pies). Bwah hahahaha!

Star Trek: The Demise

It's got the logo, and the name, and the character's names, and a pale reflection of some old Star Trek one-liners. But this movie is not in the lore. Let me enumerate the ways it's not Star Trek and a few things which were just annoying.

The look.
One of the hallmarks of Star Trek is futuristic design. You can place a Star Trek by period in time and by humaniod race based on how the set looks. The Enterprise series (the Captain Archer show) carefully looks pre-The Original Show (TOS). Voyager was the most futuristic. The Voyager crew ran into a group of Klingons whose culture came from the Klingon past - and their Klingon ship looked it. This movie is set on the bridge of the original Enterprise ship from TOS. We all know exactly what that looks like. It certainly doesn't look anything like the gleaming rounded white with translucent panels appearance of the ship shown in this movie. That may have been another ship - although even then, it wouldn't have fit with the correct time period of Star Treks. White on the bridge didn't appear until the second movie and then on a research vessel. In order to put me back on TOS, they would have had to return to the sharp edges and clean look of the red, black, and silver on the original Enterprise bridge. Update it a bit if you want to but those are the colors and there had better be some unlabeled blinking colored lights, too.

The various humanoid races of Star Trek lore were also designed carefully enough to be identifiable. Although the makeup for Klingons changed quite a bit over the years, you can always spot a Klingon in a crowd. When the baddies in this film were identified as Romulans, I was completely confused. The guys we saw looked and acted nothing like Romulans nor did their ship appear to have any Romulan symbols or design. Even granted this was a 'rogue' Romulan, he should have shown something of Romulan culture. This is no devious, scheming, double-crossing Romulan. Jolan tru?

Where's the fanfare? I can hum you the fanfare melody from every Star Trek series and movie and the Klingon battle music as well. This movie doesn't even have an identifiable drum beat and offers up a weak rendition of TOS music at the closing credits. The teens have great word for describing this movie's soundtrack - lame.

The plot.
Oy, where to start. Kirk and 2 crew spacedive to the drill platform. The guy carrying the crucial explosives needed for the mission suddenly gets thrill happy and doesn't open his parachute on time. Could the writers add some motivation here? Maybe his chute malfuntioned or he was overcome by hypoxia and didn't know what he was doing, but no. With the destruction of a planet hanging on the outcome, he's going to abandon his training for a thrill. Really? Then, during the ensuing fight scene, fire randomly shoots upward in order to incinerate a bad guy and never shoots upward again. And gee, it's a good thing Sulu's opponent also brought a sword to a phaser fight. Miraculously, a couple guys with guns can blow up the platform just as effectively as the crucial explosives which were destroyed. That part I can buy - there are a lot of technological miracles in the ST universe.

The Federation's Star Fleet should win an award for cluelessness. A huge Romulan drilling rig from the future destroys their flagship with George Kirk at the helm. After the attack, Star Fleet decides to ...ignore it? We never find out what they did after that. For the next 25 years, said ship wanders aimlessly around the galaxy but Star Fleet apparently sees no need to keep track of it and nearly forgets all about it...until it decides to wake up and begin attacking Vulcan. Oh right, the rogue Romulan was waiting 25 years for Spock to show up, doing nothing in between time. Okayyyy.

The ending leaves us in an alternate universe. The denouement of all Star Trek time travel is that by the end of the show, the timeline has been restored to its original OR it's taken us to a point where we haven't seen any alternate reality played out that the crew will ever remember (think of the end of Voyager series). Instead of going back through the black hole to our regular universe, we are left with the Vulcan race destroyed. Every bit of Star Trek lore since before the TOS began is worthless. If all we've got left from the original canon is the Enterprise series, you can have it back.

Poor editing also didn't serve the plot well. Whether it was hand to hand fight scenes or laser blasting starships, it was hard to tell who had landed a blow on whom. How can you get excited about the outcome if you can't tell how it's going or who's winning during the fight? Instead we have lots of flashing and crashing, followed by insane pummeling. The victim succumbs and then we discover who lost. If it was a bad guy, he's dead. If it's Kirk, he walks away no matter what happened to him. Hospitals are for wimps.

Random elements from other shows injected into the movie:
- the Romulan ship is from Babylon 5
- the clapping end sequence where Kirk receives his medal is from Star Wars A New Hope
- the bar scene with multiple aliens is from Star Wars A New Hope
- the little guy with Scotty is the toilet paper gremlin from Sabrina the Teenage Witch
- the chain to the drill platform comes from a ghost pirate ship on Scooby Doo

The characters.
Lt. Uhuru started out well in the first half of the movie. The dimension added to her character borrowed from Enterprise's Hoshi (alien linguist) enhanced the portrait of a serious and ambitious young officer, albeit wearing a miniskirt and go-go boots in the 60s. Suddenly, she begins acting like her roommate, the Orion slavegirl, draping herself all over Spock with no apparent prelude or motivation. This didn't work well for Nurse Chapel, who was more discreet but had a lot longer to work at it.

It shouldn't have worked for Uhura either - no matter Spock's state of grief. Making out on the transporter pad in front of other members of the crew? Even a half-Vulcan would never stoop so low. The two finger handrub would have been over the top for the original Spock. In this alternate reality, would his upbringing have been so affected as to change his personality by the appearance of the rogue Romulan ship? If so, why? His parents were still around.

Kirk is an arrogant, brash show-off but he's not stupid. In TOS he impresses Spock with his cleverness and his intuition. He thinks on his feet but also has an uncanny ability to plan ahead (think of the rescue from Rura Penthe in the sixth movie). In the second movie, The Wrath of Khan, Lt. Savik discovers that Kirk is the only cadet ever to succeed at the Kobayashi Maru scenario by reprogramming it. Spock relates that Kirk received a commendation for original thinking. But in this movie, Kirk lazily eats an apple after programming the simulator to disable the enemy ships. Yes, that would be cheating and clearly not original thinking. A better scene for this would have shown Kirk playing along with his crew in the simulation until his solution was revealed as an alternative not before available. He would have delighted in the surprise and consternation of his superiors. He wouldn't have tipped his hand by acting like a jerk during a mock drill. Also, as an adult, Capt Kirk can't drive in 'A Piece of the Action.' But in this movie, he's figuring out how to donut an old Mustang as a young teen. My guess is that the writers would explain all this away by the fact that Kirk's father died at his birth so his character and upbringing have completely changed who he is. Yes, clearly so - why not just create another character name to go with this unfamiliar person who has so little in common with TOS Kirk?

Ordinarily, Star Fleet academy seems to function in a traditional military fashion. Dressing down a cadet, as done to Kirk after his apple-eating performance, in front of his entire assembled class wouldn't fit into that. As we saw in the Next Generation, cadet actions are reviewed for discipline by a panel with only the cadet's representatives present.

Ensign Chekov didn't join the Enterprise until the second season of TOS. He wasn't aboard yet when Kirk began serving on the Enterprise. In an alternate reality such as in this movie, who cares where he was - the writers will put him any place they please at any time.

The final point - TOS, and the series and movies which came after it, were science fiction. With science fiction, you posit an alternate world with its own rules and logic. The story interest then comes from seeing how the characters react and what we the audience see of their humanity in these unfamiliar situations which flow from that universe. This is why ST fans get upset when the 'rules' are broken. It's happened a lot but all in all, the writers know they are expected to stick with the basics of Star Trek lore.

In this movie, all bets are off. Nothing in the Star Trek canon can be certain to apply. Thus, what you have is pure fantasy. In the fantasy genre, the author can change the rules at any time, swooping in to punish or rescue the characters. Daytime soap operas are famous for doing this - their characters routinely change personality, revive from comas, whisk off to distant locales or suffer from amnesia as plot devices. In the space opera that is this Star Trek movie, it's not the characters but the audience who must get amnesia.

She Got Up Off the Couch by Haven Kimmel

Audiobook review:  First, I was not a fan of A Girl Named Zippy.  It was yet another story of someone who had a dysfunctional family.  The book made me feel depressed and I only finished it since the Bookettes were reading it.  After several people (including Kathleen) told me that She Got Up Off the Couch was different, I decided to give it a try.

This audiobook was simply delightful.  If only all book prefaces could start me laughing while doing a superb job of setting the stage for a book.  Kimmel concluded the preface by saying that She Got Up Off the Couch was about her mother, Delonda, and that her experience was typical of a whole generation of women who also got up off the couch to claim a life of their won.  I'm a sucker for a story about women's issues so she had my attention from the beginning.

The memoir was well crafted and well told.  To get the most enjoyment out of it, you should listen to it.  Haven Kimmel uses her voice to instill additional dimension to the stories that she tells.  The story picks up when Zippy is 9 or 10 and follows her life for several years.  She paints vivid descriptions of the people in her life, family members, her parents' friends and her own friends.  While listening, I would burst out laughing.  Other times, I would be shaking my head in recognition of similar childhood experiences or when I was "feeling her pain".  I couldn't get enough of the story and kept offering to do any errands or other driving so that I could listen to the next events in Zippy's life.

I, too, had my mother go back to school (for her MBA) while I was growing up.  After finishing the book, I spent some time thinking about what my mother and other women in her generation did to make higher education and better career options something that felt automatic rather than something that I had to struggle for.  I am grateful for their efforts.

Lorraine

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

My ultimate "ding" for an audiobook is to stop listening after the first disk.  This story passed the first disk "test" with flying colors and I was ready to recommend it to a friend even though I had not finished the book.  Looking back, it was almost like the movie trailers where I saw all of the best parts in the previews and the full length movie had a lot of dull parts that filled the gaps between those sequences.

This story is quite a tale but it is not well told.  The main character, Will, has adventures that simply are not possible in the 21st century.  The two main story lines trace Will's relationships and adventures with the love of his life and the Cherokee Indians who adopted him as a youth.  He's the narrator and the unfolding of his adventures and misfortunes paints a picture of a sympathetic, likable guy.  I realized near the end of the book that if I stepped back and thought about Will from any other context that he could be regarded as someone whose over zealous nature over ran some commonly accepted American ideals.  The first half of the book kept my interest and had me wanting to "hear" more.  The second half dragged and was a disappointment.  If I didn't live in North Carolina and enjoyed the nuggets of NC history, this book would not be worth the time to listen or to tread.

I also listened to Frazier's earlier book, Cold Mountain.  While both books covered complex issues, I finished Cold Mountain and could not help reflecting on some of the book's messages about war.  When I finished Thirteen Moons, I was glad to be done.  That's it.  Somehow the big issue, the removal of Cherokee Indians from their land, was handled in a "this is bad" manner rather than using the story to make it more personal (and real) like Frazier did in Cold Mountain.

Cold Mountain/She Got Up Off The Couch

Liz,
I loved Cold Mountain. My favorite part was when the girl was so hungry and she didn't have a clue about cooking and then Ruby comes and breaks the chicken's neck and makes biscuits the size of cat's heads. That was a bit of imagery that I will never forget.

I am reading the continuation of Zippy the Girl from Mooreland Indiana. She Got Up Off the Couch by Haven Kimmel. We read Zippy a few years back and I am enjoying this book as well. The book is little ditties that happen to Zippy as she grows up and her Mother goes to college. It deals more deeply with the issue that were underlining her family dynamics, but in a way that really tickles my funny bone. I love a book that makes me laugh out loud and this one does. That is one chapter where her father has just bought a tape recorder and is recording everything being said in his mother's kitchen. He is trying to tell everyone about the tape recording, but there is too much other drama going on. It is really funny. I could see that happening in my house growing up.


I am sorry I missed book club last week. I hope ya'll had a good talk. I do check this site often, but wasn't sure if anyone would post. I was glad to see you did.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

First, I haven't seen the movie.

My sister-in-law loaned me her copy of this book and made me swear I would return it to her. She wrote her surname in blocky letters at the top of the title page. In case I forgot whose book it was, I guess. She was sharing something really special. Her copy is a paperback, worn and with distinct dog-ears on certain pages. I had to turn them up to read the words underneath, then carefully I folded them back into place.

She had given me the book as we were leaving, after our first visit to her year-old mountain cabin. Her husband named the little dell where it sat 'Black Cove' and the dog they adopted, which wandered onto the construction site and never left, was named Ruby. Inside the great room, a wall of windows with a door to a full deck overlooks a slice of a sweeping vista across a valley, mountains on each side and in the distance. When we were there, controlled brushfires were smoking on the far ridge. Above the window-wall, wood-burned and etched into the log above the sill, is a quote from the book, in 8-inch-high script letters. At the time, I thought it was lovely and unique, but since I didn't know the story I didn't understand the references. Now I know. My sister-in-law and her husband married later in life and had various journeys which brought them together. They plan to retire there.

I can understand why she likes the book. It's very descriptive of the North Carolina mountain region. The story develops slowly but eventually becomes a romance. I'm sure my brother-in-law enjoys the use of vocabulary in this novel. He's very amused by obscure words and this book has quite a few, since the author has tried to increase the reader's feeling of authenticity by including colloquial language from the Civil War period, the time the book takes place. Truly, I can say I've never before heard of a prothalamion.

Like many first novels, the story is told in third person past tense but the vivid detail presented from a tight main character point of view gives the reader the feel of a first person narrative memoir. As a result, the book is excellent at showing the effects of a region changed by war. The author collected real-life accounts of the period and has combined them into Inman's journey home and Ada's struggle to cope with her rustic life. These alternately intertwined separate stories create a depiction of a cross section of North Carolinians' virtues and vices exaggerated by a time of deprivation.

While reading, I felt that the book might have been better as a set of short stories. Inman's journey is so laden with events that the reader eventually deems it unlikely that all of this would be connected to one man. Even when another character is relating a story, so that the events didn't actually happen to Inman, after a number of these recitations, it seems impossible that one person would encounter so much. This was a distraction to me, which wouldn't have occured if the vignettes were presented as stories of their own. In the Odyssey, the stories themselves are symbolic in a way which these are not. As a result, Inman seems moved through his journey to get to the next opportunity for a collected tale. The book sometimes drags as the plot is soldiered on.

Similarly, the romance seems added to connect the stories. Ada's life provides a way to show the reader how a 19th century homesteader lived in the mountains. Frazier's encyclopedic knowledge of country ways is slowly reeled out in the story of how Ada learns farming from her companion, Ruby. Ruby's character is well defined and the motives of her actions are well explained. But Ada is more thinly drawn, seems indecisive, and we are never sure why she acts as she does, albeit that her background is revealed. Ada serves as the reason for Inman to continue his journey. By the end of the book, the two main characters don't really know each other and have rarely been able to correspond, so the connection seems rushed and unrealistic. The ending of the book hints at a transformation in Inman's character brought about by the effects of finding love. But the final twist of fate which closes the novel seems starkly opposite to the motivation the reader expects that a practical man such as Inman would have gained from the conclusion of travels. The ending fits a classic tragic romance perfectly - which made it feel contrived to me.

While the story left me dissatisfied at the ending, I'm glad I gained an earthy view of my adopted state during the most crucial period in its history. This is one of the few books set in the civil war south which avoids all political topics, especially the question of slavery, in favor of a rich panorama of sight, sound, smell of a place in time. When I returned the book to my sister-in-law by parcel post, I included an index card with my recipe for hash brown breakfast pie.