Seattle’s Outdoor Trek “This Side of Paradise”

Outdoor Trek
Spock throws out logic to be a flower child.

This Sunday, I spent the gloriously warm day — Seattle’s first consistently over 80 degrees — watching a fabulous performance by Hello Earth Productions. They performed the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode “This Side of Paradise.” Yes, the one where Spock smiles a lot after they meet some hippies.

I was so excited to see Outdoor Trek. I’d heard about these performances (by another troupe) in Portland, and I’d actually been thinking of driving down to Portland just to see them. But Hello Earth Productions does theirs right here in Seattle at Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park.

In fact, in my excitement, I neglected to mention to Jason what we were actually doing. He thought we were going to watch an episode with a bunch of people in a park, and he was really surprised when he saw the setup for the Enterprise’s bridge.

While “This Side of Paradise” is not one of my favorite episodes — in later TOS the hippie cultures get a little much — I was extremely excited to see this interpretation as Hello Earth Productions is comprised mostly of women. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sulu: all women. Spock’s love interest Leila was played by a man. I’ve always loved Roddenberry’s utopian ideal of Star Trek, a world without bigotry, without gender norms and racial biases. Where Uhura wasn’t a maid or mother.

The actors did a wonderful job at creating a set that was functional, that we knew was the Enterprise and planet, but was minimal. The Redshirts doubled as a band and were an excellent musical accompaniment. I also felt like whomever made the script functional for a play did a very nice job. Overall, the show was very entertaining, and even though I was melting in the sun, I happily distracted as Kirk, Spock, Bones, and crew were squirted with silly string, I mean, alien flower spores that turned them into automaton hippies.

Kids, even in the 23rd century, don’t do drugs.

Kris Hambrick’s Kirk was great. Her Shatner-esque movements worked wonderfully. Helen Parson’s Spock was pretty adorable. But I think that Julia Buck’s McCoy really stole the show for me. Buck’s mannerisms, articulations, mint julep drinking, and great acting brought out the comedy in the episode. And I loved Buck’s post about playing McCoy. Better beware, Karl Urban, Buck might snag your role in the Star Trek reboot franchise.

Outdoor Trek is definitely worth attending. Hello Earth Productions is putting on four more shows in the next two weeks. Check them out. And go see them!

Sprinkles Around the Web 2/4-2/17/11

Sprinkles from around the web

Links that I enjoyed around the web. No one else’s opinion but my own.

Me

Me, Tammy, and Jasmine at the APCC New Year Celebration. A great day with some wonderful and talented friends.
Me, Tammy, and Jasmine at the APCC New Year Celebration. A great day with some wonderful and talented friends.

Uploaded a ton of photos. Check them out.

Fandom

NBC casts Wonder Woman! ‘Friday Night Lights’ star lands coveted role I’ve never seen Adrianne Palicki act, however, I am so happy that this is going forward. For real this time.

What Superhero Comics Look Like A great little article breaking down how Osborn #3 by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios is scripted and put together art-wise, also how it applies to the very best of current comic books.

10 Reasons the Star Trek 2 Screenplay Still Isn’t Done

3) Everybody wanted Uhura to kick some ass this time around. But they couldn’t figure out how to have her kick ass in a teeny minidress, without needing a lot of strategically placed lens flare. The writers spent two months trying to figure out a plot reason why Uhura might have to put on some pants, or maybe some leggings, for part of the movie. What if they go to a planet of leg-biting monsters, and she has to put some protective leg coverings on? Or maybe Spock shows her a special Vulcan ritual, in which practitioners must wear pants as a sign of devotion to pure logic?

Andy Warhol, Nico, Robin And The Bats! Esquire Magazine Photoshoot 1967 This is an amazing. I’m such a Factory fangirl. If I could go back into time, I would go there and hang out.

Legend of a Cowgirl An amazing Firefly fanvid about Zoe. Just perfect. I love it. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 2/4-2/17/11”

Favorite older female character: Wonder Woman (Day Fourteen)

Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince from DC Comics

Golden Age Wonder Woman breaks gold to save the day.
Golden Age Wonder Woman breaks gold to save the day.

I didn’t know if the meme creator meant older as in age, or older as when created, so I’m going with Wonder Woman who was created in the 1940s. Wonder Woman is meant to be part of DC Comics’ Trinity, along with Superman and Batman. She was created for women, specifically young girls reading comic books.

In the 1940s, comic books were a common and extremely popular medium to tell stories. During wartime, they were used to boost morale. Wonder Woman fought Hitler and the Nazis just like her male counterparts.

But at the same time, Wonder Woman was a goddess. She had the wisdom of Athena, the beauty of Aphrodite, the speed of Mercury, and the strength of Hercules. Wonder Woman was her creator William Moulton Marston’s ideal of the perfect woman, whom he thought would teach the world to love instead of go to war. Wonder Woman may have been idealized, but she also surrounded herself with women and taught them to better themselves. To be more like her by learning to reach their potential. While this may sound arrogant, Wonder Woman is anything but.

Luckily for us, Wonder Woman’s story has continued throughout the years. Sometimes, her story hasn’t been as wonderful as she deserved, but other creators have captured her beautiful world to share new stories with us. I’m hoping she’ll get a new TV show, and it will let the non-comic reading world see how amazing she is.

Personally, Wonder Woman is one of my own idols and role models. I seek to have the same grace and wisdom that she possesses. Also, I want to help and support other women in the ways that she does.

I’ve been reading 1940’s Wonder Woman comics and talking about them on my comic book blog.

Sprinkles Around the Web 1/28-2/3/11

Sprinkles from around the web

Various links I enjoyed from around the internet.

Me

GeekGirlCon: Power to the Geek Girls. Robb Orr on ComicBooked.com interviews me about GeekGirlCon.

Fandom

Jane Espenson: Writer, sci-fi thriller, one nerdy lady. A great profile on Jane Espenson, who’s one of my favorite TV writers.

Follow That Marshmallow: A Ghostbusters Tour. This is pretty awesome. You know my cat is named after a Ghostbuster, right?

Bucky as the Winter Soldier
Bucky as the Winter Soldier as he is in Ed Brubaker's Captain America.

‘Captain America’ director: ‘Our Bucky isn’t a sidekick… there’s a darker edge’. Of course there is. Someone’s been reading Brubaker’s current run of Captain America.

Why I’m Not Speaking at PAX East 2011. In case you haven’t been reading, Penny Arcade started selling rape joke t-shirts. Pulled the “it’s just a joke” and then took them down when everyone got really mad. Failboat. Especially for a company that runs a con where they try to make it safe for women.

GeekGirlCon

Auctions!. Check out GeekGirlCon’s geeky auctions. All proceeds go to support GeekGirlCon.

Politics

Why Female Politicians Are More Effective. Of course, we are. We have to be 2 and 1/2 times better than any man at our “non-traditional” jobs in order to prove ourselves and prove that women can do these things.

The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape. This just makes me see red.

Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad. Republicans are pushing to limit rape and incest cases eligible for government abortion funding.

Hawaii Senate Passes Civil Unions. Huzzah. Civil rights for everyone is awesome.

Proposed Arizona law targets “birthright” citizenship. Arizona continues to earn it’s place as the shame of the nation. Seriously, this just screams that they hate brown people.

What’s Happening in Egypt Explained (UPDATED). In case you’ve been living under a rock.

Recipes (I want to make.)

SEO

Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results. Oh, snap. There needs to more competition in search and less copying.

Science

Dinosaur Comics explains infinite worlds. There are many, many T-Rexs. And they’re immortal.

A fizzy ocean on Enceladus. Not only is this ocean underground, it’s also fizzy like soda pop. How awesome is that!

Scientists working to grow meat in labs. Now this is when science starts to scare me. I saw this episode of Better Off Ted, and the meat tasted like despair.

Technology

Tunisia, Egypt, Miami: The Importance of Internet Choke Points. This is how you turn off the internet.

Zuckerberg’s Page Hacked, Now Facebook To Offer “Always On” HTTPS. Well, now we all know how to make Facebook actually care about security. Maybe we can do so for privacy too?

Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11

Sprinkles from around the web

A collection of interesting links that I found around the web. Read and enjoy.

Me

Erica in her new dress
Because sometimes, I just need to buy and wear a pretty red dress.

Environment

Polar bear swims for nine straight days in search of ice Polar bears swim, but they don’t swim as far as this one. Why did this bear swim so far? It couldn’t find ice. Yep, the real effects of global warming.

Squirrels Around the World There are some freaking adorable squirrels out there.

Fandom

The Rape of Inara: On heroines, consent, and women’s sexuality

I am now gleefully happy that “Firefly” got canceled. Not that I wasn’t before, but now? I can almost forgive FOX for canceling all those TV shows if it means that Inara was never raped. Also, TV, can you stop having the women with sexuality be raped or otherwise punished for having it while pretending to be edgy for having women with ‘unconventional’ sexualities?

Resistance, a Star Trek: The Next Generation fanvid I love this video so much. It’s amazing.

‘Dark Knight Rises’: Anne Hathaway will be Catwoman, Tom Hardy is Bane Okay, she’ll actually be Selina Kyle as who knows if she’ll be Catwoman in this one… Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11”

Sprinkles Around the Web 12/31/10-01/13/11

Sprinkles from around the web

Links from around the web that I enjoyed. Mileage may vary.

Me

Check out me and my new knives.
Check out me and my new knives.

My Amazon.com GeekGirlCon product recommendations

GeekGirlCon

• Come to our all-hands meeting this Saturday from 10am-1pm at the Madison Park Starbucks in Seattle.

We’re throwing Buffy Summers a 30th Birthday Bash in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Come join us.

Environment

BP Disaster was “Avoidable” The commission reports find that it was due to failure on part of all the companies. Which means lazy companies caused on of the worst environmental disasters we’ve seen. And they aren’t properly cleaning it up.

Fandom

David Tennant and Catherine Tate are to appear together on stage in a new West End production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. OMG, I want to go now!

Superman’s social network nightmare About the destruction moms can do on Facebook.

Diamond Halts All Shipments Of Graphic Novels To Borders. Apocalyptic Wave Of Returns Expected Diamond has a capital on comic book distribution. I’m going to assume that it’s in the best interests of Marvel and DC Comics to make deals directly with Borders. Hopefully, this will help take down Diamond’s monopoly on comic book distribution.

Women and Comics Another letter to publishers and marketers how they are missing a huge part of the world: women.

Wonder Woman TV project officially dead I’m going to be over here crying. Not even television super producer David E. Kelley could get a Wonder Woman project off the ground.

Dinosaur Comics on the likelihood of a real life Batman

7 reasons to give Stephanie Brown a chance as Batgirl Yes. I agree with all of this. Enjoying Stephanie Brown as Batgirl does not mean that one cannot also like Cass Cain. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 12/31/10-01/13/11”

Book Review: Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors by Jennifer K. Stuller

Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors by Jennifer K. StullerInk-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology by Jennifer K. Stuller

Full disclaimer: I know Jen as she’s the programming director for GeekGirlCon. She’s awesome, makes delicious pizza, and has two adorable dogs, Giles and Wesley. Jen also has a blog you should read. However, she has in no way influenced or otherwise bribed me with puppy snuggles to write this review.

Back to the book, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology is about heroic women characters in modern media (1940’s to today) and what their stories say about our society and most importantly how our society views the roles of women and their potential. The book is very accessible and easy to read, even if you aren’t familiar with every movie, show, comic book, or novel which Stuller references. (There’s an appendix filled with footnotes and notes on characters and the author’s own recommended reading and viewing.) It’s definitely a geeky book as Stuller is very excited to share with you, the reader, about the media and super-powered women she loves.

But at the same time, Stuller is very much an academic feminist, who chooses instead of harshly critiquing the flaws in the media she discusses to celebrate the strengths and the good points. This is not a bad view to have. It is just different than my own; and at many times in my reading, I wanted to say, “But!” (I can love Buffy: the Vampire Slayer without particularly loving Joss Whedon, for instance.) That said, I still enjoyed her viewpoint, and I do cherish many of the texts she discusses despite their flaws.

In Section I, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors flows really nicely from one topic to the next, in both a chronological and evolutionary development of the woman hero. I absolutely agree that most of our modern superwoman mythology is thanks to Wonder Woman and those hard-working, ever iconic Rose the Riveters of WWII. Stuller does a great job at addressing the political climates of the different eras and the resulting heroines without passing judgments.

In Section II, Stuller covers what she calls the ‘Journey of the Female Hero.’ But I would rather say it’s actually about the hero’s family-structure as Stuller digs into how women heroes gain strength from those around them, e.g. Buffy and the Scoobies and Xena and her relationship with Gabrielle.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter about mothers. Mostly because I love texts where women characters have good and inspiring relationships with their mothers. And I do agree with Stuller that good mother-daughter relationships in heroics could use a few more texts.

In Section III, Stuller discusses current myth making by women creators and the question of where these texts are evolving too. This section was the least organized, and Stuller seemed to drift from topic-to-topic in a way that she previously did not. She also seemed to go back to some topics she’d already discussed, particularly journeys of heroic women and their mothers. And I can somewhat empathize with the task of trying to write history as it happens and not having the distance. I hope that Stuller can update this book as our female heroes grow.

Overall, as a pop culture fan, I enjoyed Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors and would recommend it to anyone interested in how heroic women are portrayed in pop culture. This book would also make a great companion reader to a class about heroic women. I’m also happy that I got a few recommendations of texts to try myself that I hadn’t heard of like the British spy Modesty Blaise.

Read more about why your favorite female heroes are awesome, buy Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology by Jennifer K. Stuller and support this blog. You can also check out Stuller’s geeky recommendation list, which features a lot of the media she covers in her book.

Sprinkles Around the Web 12/25-12/30/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Long time, no link posts. Time to get back on that horse. Anyway, here are some links that I’ve found interesting around the web. Your mileage may vary, and yes, I’m putting all the GeekGirlCon stuff first as it has to do with me. Besides being awesome in general.

GeekGirlCon

We’re busy little bees with GeekGirlCon, a celebration of geeky women by having a convention in Seattle in 2011. We’re busy raising funds in order to secure our venue and have a date and place for the convention. We’re 50% of the way toward our funding. Please donate.

Or come out to support us!

We had a “Hero of Canton” flashmob. (Take a second to find me. Or cheat with photos.)

GeekGirlCon Christmas Greetings If you’re not sick of the holidays, check out a season’s greetings from GeekGirlCon.

Estrocast Episode 3: Geek Girl Con Hear me (and Kiri and Kelcey) talk to the Estrocast about GeekGirlCon.

Fandom

Dinosaur Comics Hitting right to the heart of the holiday season, Dinosaur Comics does it again.

Atlantis movie shelved ‘indefinitely’ Brad Wright and company continues to punish SGA fans for not watching SGU. Hey, try writing better shows or maybe adding some women and minorities to your writing staff. Just saying.

Feminism

• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on Why We Have So Few Women Leaders Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 12/25-12/30/10”

My Birthday Bash Day 10: I want a pony

For complete context about why I’m not having a birthday party for my 27th birthday this year and how you can still celebrate with me, read You’re Invited to My 27th Birthday Bash.

Erica rides on Crisco with dad leading and Jonathan checking things out.
I ride on my pony Crisco at my grandma's house.

On the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy, the interns are put into a contest and the winner gets to perform a surgery. When talking about how she’s going to win, one of the interns April, who grew up on a ranch like me, puts it like this:

“When I was little, I wanted a pony too, and you know what happened…I, uh, worked really hard, and I got one.”

As a young child, I also won the pony lottery. When I was 4-years-old, my paternal grandpa died, and my grandma soon decided that she could no longer care for her pony Crisco. (Yes, my grandma named the pony after shortening.) I loved riding Crisco. It was by far my favorite thing to do at my grandparents’ house.

Around the same time, my parents purchased 20 undeveloped acres outside of Bend, Oregon. They put some cows on it and built a barn. Knowing my love of Crisco, they decided that a little girl needed a pony. So we loaded him up and took him home.

Crisco was a black Shetland Pony and as stubborn as hell. He hated men, and he hated to run. Crisco was fat and would literally eat anything in front of him to the point of foundering. My parents then moved him from the pasture with the cows to the natural high desert landscape. But Crisco loved sage brush, cheet grass, and Juniper trees just as much as grass. He foundered again. The only solution was to lock him in a corral and feed him a highly-monitored diet. (He even stripped the bark from the one tree in his pen.)

I wasn’t allowed to ride Crisco on my own. So anytime I rode him, it was a big ordeal that involved getting him bridled and being led around by an adult on my pony.

One fateful summer day, my parents decided to throw a barbecue at our newly built house and invited friends, neighbors, and my dad’s employees. They also decided, perhaps at my begging, that pony rides for all the kids (or just me) would be a blast. Continue reading “My Birthday Bash Day 10: I want a pony”