Gunsmoke and Steampunk

Hi Carolyn,


Hope your Memorial Day weekend was suitably therapeutic ( as holidays should be ). Our Victoria Day equivalent was last weekend and we had a few extra days with our daughter who had some year end make you shake your head tales of teaching at the University level, that made one ponder and sometimes cringe when considering into whose hands the future is being passed.  More on that in a later entry.



Your recent  mentions of watching an " Oldy but goody " replete with  " cowboys, gunslinging, bad guys, the saloon concubine and the doc........ " sent me immediately back to what has to be the quintessential oldy but goody  TV western - Gunsmoke.  I remember it being on the tube in our household from forever, it seems. It wasn't must see TV - like The  Jack Benny Show ,  Sid Ceasar's  " Your Show of Shows" , Sgt. Bilko, Jackie Gleason and Ernie Kovacs were for me.

 



It did, of course, prompt me to do the Google, You Tube and IMDB background check on this venerable series. It sure was  a touchstone . One of the most interesting aspects was the number of later household names who cut some of  their early acting teeth on one or more episodes.  Ed Asner, Bruce Dern, Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Carroll O'Connor, Cloris Leachman, Dennis Hopper, Ted Knight, Mark Lenard, Martin Landau, Jack Lord, Lee Majors........... to name but a few.  






Well before they were known for boldly going where no one had gone before,  Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Bones from the original Star Trek each did a guest stint  on Gunsmoke.








 




Burt Reynolds kept his irons in the fire regularly for three years on the series  as beefcakesque blacksmith  Quint Asper.

Apparently, I guess, a significant chunk of the fanbase felt that this was an impressive body of/at work....














While we're exploring humble beginnings - series star James Arness , the six foot six Marshall Dillon himself, got his big foot in the Hollywood door back in 1951, in part,  by appearing in Howard Hawk's " The Thing".




In 1952, about the time I got out of diapers, and a year after Arness did his "Thing" thing on the big screen,  Gunsmoke appeared as a radio drama and ran, believe it or not, until 1961. In 1955 it first appeared on American television with James Arness as Marshall Dillon.  Gunsmoke  stayed on the small screen and in North American living rooms for two decades. Some insight into its longevity can be had from the Wikipedia entry which noted:


At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend."^[



I checked out some episodes online. First thing that struck me is that, compared to  the jolt every half-minute pattern of current televised drama, things seem to move along at a glacial pace. Back then a half hour tv series had approximately 27 minutes to get its job done. Today it's closer to 22 so things do get compressed and hyped up in the process.


 Do I wish for the older, kinder, gentler approach? 




Not really and that may be in part because, for me at least, it was kinda like being in Mr. Rogers Mild West Neighbourhood. The term I first thought of was "schmaltzy" .

 It's an awfully nice and bucolic frontier, to be sure, yet I found myself waiting for some kind of cataclysmic occurrence to kick things up a few notches. Somehow, even the dramatic climax scenes seemed exceedingly warm and fuzzy.







It makes me think that in the decades since Matt Dillon et al left the airwaves I've become  desensitized and weaned away from heartfelt and thought-provoking  entertainment  by the digital flash and hyperbolic glitter of what appears in media all around me every day. I've traded sincere for sensational or gone for the sizzle rather than the steak .



Anyhow, no full-tilt media-literacy rant here (much as I'd like to) since I also want to touch on the other item in your last blog that set me to thinking, Carolyn.



Steampunk is  a term you've used more than thrice in the blog and I figured  I should look at it a little more. I  read " The Difference Engine" a number of years ago. It was okay, but I think I just wasn't into that kinda stuff at the time. I started coming around to it more  with   The Serpent Bearer series from awhile back here at Wormhole Electric Publishing. That  was probably my first in-depth exposure to this genre. I enjoyed that series immensely. The characters were well-drawn and the story was airtight and there was something else about it that just gave some extra oomph.


I didn't quite realize why it resonated so well with me until I read in Wikipedia that Fritz Langs'  Metropolis was seen as:

"... the single most important early film to represent Steampunk as an emerging stylistic genre."


On the screen or on the page I get the feeling that part of the Steampunk thing is the sheer visual appeal it conjures up at times. I get the same gratifying visual experience from watching Metropolis as I get from 2001.   Lang and Kubrick just operate a few levels above the rest of us, in  grey matter matters.



 So maybe that's how Steampunk works- it serves up massive images of strength and power  harnessed to do our bidding be it good or evil.  Interstellar sensibilities somehow seem to meld seamlessly  with sweaty, clanking machinery to heighten the experience.  ( Kinda sounds like Quint Asper in space ) Even the name itself has a runaway locomotive thing going for it. At the moment it's one of those experiences that I can really appreciate but can't quite fully articulate, I guess.



Okay, this would be a good time to harken back to  the steamboat era, and to someone whose already been noted in the Gunsmoke musings.


As  Twain noted:

Get your facts first,

then you can distort

them as you please.

 

 

 

 

Catch ya next time,

 

 

Don 

All images sourced from Google Images

 

 

Fig. 1 - classicflix.blogspot.com

Fig. 2 - www.hulu.com

Fig. 3 - www.autographwarehouse.com

Fig. 4 - www. weebly.com

Fig. 5 - www.nfsa.gov.au

Fig. 6 - io9.com

Fig. 7 - thestalkingmoon.com 

Fig. 8 - www.kottke.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect doesn't work

Good morning Don!

Thanks for reviewing Jeff's stories for me. I've always thought he was a talented writer – nice to know someone else agrees with me! I received the cover art for Transport 42 yesterday – it blew me away! June will be a very special Transport!

We've been watching a series - Firefly – an oldy but goody with Nathan Fillion. The series was filmed in 2003 and had a very limited run.  It is steam punk at its finest: old fashioned cowboys, gun slinging and bad guys, space ships and shot guns, the saloon concubine and the doc who is on the run, and a lost and confused preacher who isn't sure why he is where he is. It has been fun imagining steam punk in space. 

This led me to review Ariel Cinii's series, A Dance in White Time (the stories we released this month). I'm once again struck by the steam punk properties of her stories. Ariel has written four books with us, Don: world building, delightful characters, description that puts Tolkien to shame.  I'm not sure if she has any more books, but I hope so!

In the meantime, I've moved on to more interesting writing challenges. One of our instructors at the Art Institute is the well-known, award winning video producer, Dr. Don Dexter. I have been pestering him for years to give me insights into video writing so I can help his students as writers. This quarter, Dr. Dexter agreed! He has been guiding me through the video writing process for the last couple of weeks.

The biggest problem for me has been overcoming the "perfect sentence" syndrome that comes with being an English instructor. Video voice over is not always a complete sentence. Nor does it always end in a nicely tied up paragraph. My brain has finally able to compare this writing to writing a landing page for the internet. I'm hoping that my examples for Dr. Dexter tomorrow will be "satisfactory."

I've also been editing a book that has been picked up by Hay House Publishers. My edits are due back to the author by June 1. That means my whole schedule this month has been teaching, grading, editing, editing, teaching, grading, editing ... all the habit changing I did last month to complete the Nanowrimo writing challenge seem to have gone out the window.

I saw the hand specialist for the last time this week. His advice? Cut back on the grading and start climbing. Relief! This afternoon I plan on taking him up on that. I'll go to the local rec center and try out their wall. I'll keep it simple, my arm strength has diminished over the last year. I think that just getting back into a harness and "hitting the top of the wall" and riding the rope down will make a big difference in my attitude.

I have made no promises to myself this month other than to complete what I've agreed to do. I'm not sure I agree with Clemens that a broken promise is better than no promise... the broken promise can become the past experience that keeps us from moving forward.

Have a great week! Hopefully you didn't get in on the last round of bad weather that came your way.

Carolyn

All images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 -- Amazing FIREFLY and DOCTOR WHO Art from Tim Doyle — GeekTyrant retrieved from geektyrant.com

Fig 3 -- Search Results How To Use Audition In A Sentence - Girl ENgine  retrieved from

girlengine.com

Fig 4 -- Climb On | Indoor Rock Climbing Gym | 708.798.9994 retrieved from www.climbon.net

Mind Games are always in season

Hi Carolyn,

Maybe  I'm in a period of hyper- awareness  because the Stanley Cup playoffs are on - and my beloved Habs are in there big time -  or it just may be that observations about internal dialogues in your last entry were so dead on with my own. I can't say for sure but, for me,  you nailed a couple of things in that  last entry.




"Promises", you said  " What an interesting can of worms."

Boy, are you smack  on with that !



 I do believe that  "promise"  has to be just about one of the most charged and dangerous words/concepts running freely about - so much contained in seven letters.








 Its right up there with " I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. " Man, if we all lived that credo to the hilt we'd not have lawyers, would we.  I wonder if whales or porpoises or simians makes "promises" to each other or is it just something we homo sapiens do?
A promise implies that future actions will be governed by a commitment made at the point of the promise made. Do other highly intelligent animals think ahead or learn from past mistakes. Some of the stuff I've seen on The National Geographic channel suggests that this may be so.  

 Wow.









 But the whole idea of a " promise to myself" that you dealt with last time around, Carolyn, is a clear step up and intriguing on at least two levels. First of all, in one respect why would we have to " promise " ourselves anything. It sorta suggests that there's more than one conscious entity down there in our subconscious  basement  sharing ( or maybe squatting upon )  our psyche - otherwise who would we be making the "promise" to?? 





Of course we all do it. I have probably said " I gotta stop doing this! " to myself twenty-five times for every time I've said it to someone else.

 Secondly, who are you going to be in trouble with if the promise is broken?  I guess that's where the whole voice of ones conscience thing comes in. There's a separate entity down there who's gonna be chastising the on-the-surface you  big-time  upon the breaking of said promise.





I guess that's what comes with having such a complicated organ inside ones skull. When I see folks I know fighting battles with diseases that target the brain as well as the body it does drive home the idea that mortality is a bitch.



Okay, morbidity has left the building now. Back to the other stuff.


 The two stories you've forwarded to me by Jeff N Keir are simply great. I have enjoyed them immensely. I don't want to do any kind of a spoiler thing here for anyone else so I'll just leave off by saying that they do "transport" the reader in, as Bill and Ted would say,  a most savoury way. Try them, you'll like them.


Leaving off with some words from Mr. Clemens that harken back to the thought that got this entry rolling in the first place:

Better a broken promise

than none at all

Catch ya later,



Don




All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - allhabs.net

Fig. 2 - socialistnetwork.org

Fig. 3 - imgarcade.com

Fig. 4 - the-scientist.com

Fig. 5 - spring.org.uk

Promises

Don,
I'm done. I made it – My Nanowrimo Goal: 20,000 words in 30 days; I did 20,222 words in 28 days. The story I that I thought could be told in less than 20,000 words is now really just the plot action part of the story. There is little characterization, little to no description, and I'm still about 20 pages from the end of the story. But I met my goal, I kept my promise to myself.

I think that keeping that promise to myself was the hardest thing I've done recently. If I hadn't signed on to the  Camp Nanowrimo website and publicly accepted the challenge, I'm sure I would have backed out. It is so easy for me to keep a promise to others, but not to myself. When I confirmed the word count and the certificate showed up, I thought I'd cry – like I'd just won $1,000. Amazing.  Don, thanks for being patient and waiting for me to get done.

I'm not sure my writing process was all that good. I'd write by hand for about 30 - 40 minutes every night before I went to bed. I had 8 pages of information - this was nothing more than a basic outline. By the time I had time to sit in front of the computer and type, the story had expanded in my mind and I had to fill in all the holes that I had. I finally had to set aside a day - lock the door, not answer the phone, don't look at email... in order to get it done. The last 2,000 words just would not let me sleep! I finally got up early early in the morning and typed out the last part of the story. But it's done. 

Lesson? For me, writing a bit every day is very helpful! But I still need large blocks of time to get the story typed, worked out and readable. Writing is not for the weak of will. 

I also managed to keep abreast of the grading that I've had to do over the last month. As far as MBH is concerned, if I wasn't  attached to the computer, I had a pencil in my hand and I was muttering  "What about this don't you understand?"  Now all he will just hear is "What don't you understand?"  

I think this question is in line with the news that comes out of Texas A& M – a professor fails his entire class due to cheating, swearing, lack of maturity, disregard for authority ... I'm sure his list is fairly long. What I found absolutely not acceptable was the response from the "Political reports" that state that "Higher education has not adapted its standards and practices to allow for a smooth transition from high school to college ... colleges need to adjust their introductory  courses" because students arriving on campus lack reading and critical thinking skills and are unable to deconstruct math problems. I got the sense that I was being told that I needed to "Lower My Standards." I'm hoping I have that wrong... Seems to me the failure is not college - the failure is public school, maybe even just the politicians. They failed to keep their promise to educated. 

I think my all time favorite news this week was when a mother discovered her son was rioting, went out and brought him home. I'm sure the student is hiding under the house afraid to show his face because he believes his mother embarrassed him to no end. I applaud the mother. She had enough guts to go get her child and keep him from doing harm; she cared enough about his life to save him from being stupid. I'm sure there are those who will say that she was "abusing" him in some manner or form. If it comes to that, hopefully enough mothers will stand with her, with their children, so we can reclaim our rights as parents. She kept her promise to raise her son in the best manner possible and to keep him from harming others. 

One of our instructors keeps telling me the student is the client, the customer. And in many ways that might be correct. At least, that is the way I felt until recently. I'm still working on the book about student loans and I'm beginning to think that my customer is really the public. Students are taking out loans, defaulting on those loans, taking the money and not showing up for class because it is, after all, not related to their major degree, or they aren't interested in the subject or (heaven forbid) they have to do homework, and then they are complaining they can't get a job and pay back their loans ... My customer is the public. They loaned good money to students so they could contribute to society - so they could learn what is of value, be able to critically think and make sound decisions. Students didn't keep their promise. Not all, but enough that the system is now breaking and students are deep in debt.

Some will say that as a society we have not kept our promise to the younger generation by providing jobs for them after they got out of school. Not sure I agree. I don't remember anyone promising me a job after I got my degree. I was pushed out of the protective umbrella of college and told to "go for it! What you do now is entirely up to you!" My promise was to pay back the loans and do the best I could.  I realize that I didn't owe $30,000, but the average salary a 100 years in my past was $.75 to $1.25 an hour - not the $8 - 10.00 + it is now. If we made $10,000 a year, we were hot stuff! We couldn't afford the pricey latest phone or a fine new car (a used one with new tires was about it) and we rented for many years. We were stepping up when we were able to buy our first color TV on a 13 inch screen instead of the 9 inch black and white we had. 

Promises. What an interesting can of worms. 

As you can tell, it's been an interesting long week. Hope you are doing well. 

Have a great week everyone, 
Carolyn