12 February 1998: A View From The Gallery

Thursday, 12 February 1998:

A View From The Gallery

It's been a pretty quiet ~~week in Lake Wobegon, my home town~~ couple of days here. Well, work has been a little hectic, as I had a couple of big things to finish by the end of the week - big enough that I was turning people away who also had big things that needed doing. But there are only so many hours in the day, especially when working under pressure.

But I got one of the big projects done, and the other one almost entirely done, although it's marginally more flexible. And one of the things I was approached about we'll get moving on on Monday. Phew!

Seeing as Valentine's Day (a.k.a., That Contemptable Holiday) falls on a Saturday this year, today was a "virtual" V-Day (on Friday the 13th; how appropriate). A few non-single folks were discussing things they were doing for it, and one person was talking about how she and her S.O. were almost trying to one-up the other in this way. I responded to this that my Valentine's Day observation consisted of buying myself four compact discs; they last longer than flowers or roses or dinner, and they're mine-all-mine! Bwah-hah-hah!

I hate Valentine's Day. Beating my head against a brick wall until my ears bleed is a more rewarding experience.

The CDs I bought? Tracy Chapman's first album; Kate & Anna McGarrigle's first album; the new compilation by Renaissance, Tales From Renaissance Days, and Dog's Eye View's first album, Happy Nowhere. All are pretty decent, though the Chapman album is probably the best. The McGarrigle album is a little to 'twangy' for me to really get into, although "Kiss and Say Goodbye" is a neat song.

Last night we had our monthly book discussion, touching on Steven Gould's Jumper. We all basically enjoyed it, and largely had the same reactions to it, which made for a slightly dull discussion, although we diverged into other territory frequently - no big surprise there.

Wednesday was Babylon 5 night. I'm rather behind mastering tapes of the re-runs, so I'll be spending a bunch of time this weekend catching up. The new episode, "A View From The Gallery" was pretty neat. It was co-written by Joe Straczynski and Harlan Ellison, and struck me as very Ellison-esque.

It basically focused on two maintenance workers on the station, Bo and Mac. Mac (the short one, I think!) came off as rather stereotypical, though Bo was somewhat more complex than that. It was an interesting mix of humor and seriousness. I think the most effective scene of the whole thing was when Bo was fixing something in MedLab in case they needed an alternate atmosphere to operate on the aliens who were coming to attack the station. Bo asks Doctor Franklin point blank why they'd even bother; these guys were coming to kill them. Let them die!

It was the sort of scene where you just know that if it had been someone on equal dramatic footing with Franklin, the Doc would have explained the high morals of why it would just be wrong not to save them. The "If we let them die how are we any better than they are?" argument. But here's a guy with whom we all know that argument won't wash, so he has to come up with something else, and it was a refreshingly down-to-earth approach to the issue.

I hope these invaders don't turn out to be just some random race out to find easy targets, but never heard from again (much like the Streib from "All Alone In The Night"). I hate when that happens.

I'm working my way through C. J. Cherryh's Kesrith. It's so blindingly clear that she had a revelation about her writing somewhere between 1983's Downbelow Station and 1988's Cyteen, as her handling of the characterization is just so much more sophisticated in the latter. Her characters in her earlier novels - of which this is one (1978) - are pretty flat, built to serve the needs of the plot, rather than the other way around. This makes this novel and Downbelow interesting technical exercises in fiction, but substantially less compelling than Cyteen. I ought to try reading her recent Inheritor series, which I've generally heard good things about.

At any rate, I'm hoping this trilogy will have more about humanspace at some point, as these aliens are not all that exciting. I particularly wish she'd write more books about the Union, as I just can't get all that excited about the Merchanter's Alliance.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)