Articles, observations, and fictions by Sam Girdich: history & philosophy buff, pop culture fan, aging (sigh) martial artist, husband/parent, and proud owner of a pleasantly odd mind.
Stan wasn’t alone in encouraging generations of readers to
walk the Heroes‘ Path but he was the face of it for many. He balanced
power with responsibility. Showed us that while strength comes in many
subtle forms it doesn’t make the wielder any more perfect than you or I.
He knew humor healed. He was one of several gifted creators that made
the heroic seem within our grasp if we only reach out our hand.
Ever stumble upon a song only to remember it from your youth? Then by rediscovering the song you truly discover the band for the first time? Then by the discovering the band you open a vista of existence that was invisible yet always there?
No?
Oh, well never mind then....
To hell with that I'm going to continue. This happened to me this week thanks to the recommended feed of YouTube. I know the site's algorithms can sometimes act...hmmm... how do I say this....off balanced? Irrational? Under the influence of seriously potent subscription drugs? If you frequent the site you know of what I speak. But this time! This time it did good.
Behold! The Stranglers' "Golden Brown" circa 1981.
The band The Stranglers have been around since 1974. I was five when they formed. That was the year Mohammad Ali fought George "The Grill" Foreman. Stephen King's "Carrie" was published. The Sears Tower was the tallest building in the world. Alanis Morissette was born. Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Zardoz came to the silver screen while Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Planet of the Apes threw weirdness at us from our television screens. And they are still around today albeit with the normal trials and tribulations accompanying their age. Pretty damn amazing.
While delving into the band I discovered a popular release titled "No More Heroes." That sounded familiar. Do you recognize it?
Perhaps this?
That's the Violent Femmes covering The Stranglers. How cool is that!
This is the kind of thing I am talking about. Random chance nudges a domino and suddenly you're riding a wave to the delightfully unexpected. I want more of that in my life.
If this were a travel blog it might start like this:
"Nestled in the rolling hills of the Adirondacks sits historic Ticonderoga, New York. Its name comes from the Mohawk phrase, "At the junction of two waterways." for here is where Lake Champlain and Lake George connect via the many falls and rapids of La Chute River. A site of industrial and military importance in the early days of America, Ticonderoga today is known as having the highest number of confirmed alien abductions per capita in the world. In fact, aliens have returned more people to Ticonderoga then they have taken, which accounts in part for its steady population growth since the late 1980's."
But this is NOT a travel blog.
I'm here because the most accurate recreations of Star Trek TOS sets ever made are in Ticonderoga. And did I mention they were built by an Elvis impersonator? Sometimes fandom is a wonderful and beautiful thing.
Don't let the exterior fool you. Nerd awesomeness awaits you.
I am in no way affiliated with Star Trek Original Set Tours but I want to promote it so allow me to borrow from their website.
"Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour is Located in Historic downtown Ticonderoga, New York.
When the STAR TREK television series was
canceled in 1969, the original sets were dismantled and largely
destroyed, only a few small items of the actual sets remain today, and
those that have survived are in private collections. Trek superfan James
Cawley began the process of rebuilding the sets just as they would have
been seen 50 years ago when the series was being filmed, a 14 year
journey has culminated in the most accurate rebuild of the original
sets, and is now open and welcoming STAR TREK fans from all over the
world!
Our sets are complete recreations built
using the original blueprints, hundreds of hours of serious research and
thousands of photographs – both period images and images culled from
extensive review and capture from the original episodes. The sets will
NOT and were NOT designed to move from one city to another and are fully
licensed by CBS. The Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour Invites you to
come see the Desilu Studio as it looked during the years between
1966-1969 while Star Trek was in production."
That's 100% accurate. While filming is not allowed during the tour, taking pictures is encouraged. Walk with me, won't you?
"Ma'am! You dropped your bread stick!"
"Hug?"
Someone on my tour pressed the red button. Don't press the red button.
Working flat screen monitors. Cool.
Kirk's love nest.
"Get a life!" True fans get this...
"Ye cannae change the laws of physics!"
Set phasers to malky.
Can I sit there? Yes, yes you can.
Just a few of the props on display.
I took a lot more pics but I won't post them here because I want YOU to see the place for yourself and hear all the cool tour info. And they have plans to expend into the Next Generation series! I don't want to give spoilers but THEY WANT TO MAKE THE TNG ENGINE ROOM! How cool is that! So who is the man behind the Blue Suede curtain that made all of this possible? Let me borrow again from the website.
James is not the guy in the chair.
"James Cawley grew up as an avid Star Trek fan. He began collecting
props and costumes from the original series in 1997 and acquired the
original TOS Enterprise blueprints from William Ware Theiss when he
interned on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a professional costume
maker. He then spent 15 years researching, crafting and refining his
set replicas alongside other dedicated fans and craftspeople. Pouring
over stills and frame captures from TOS and sourcing vintage
materials and antiques, Cawley ensured that even the smallest details
were accurately and lovingly reproduced. When not in the 23rd century, Cawley is also an award-winning Elvis Tribute artist. "
For more on James here's an article on Memory Alpha : I'm a link
This man brings two of his favorite fandoms to life entertaining people from around the world. How cool is that! Kudos, Jim! Keep building it and they will come. Pass the peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
(c) I have no idea who originally made this. But I like it.
Imagine all the most outlandish paranormal and super natural stories you've heard were true. Now imagine they are NOWHERE near as close to how alien and weird and dangerous the world actually is. To this add an organization, a Foundation, which is all that stands between you and the crawling terror that lurksin your glove box and sock drawer. Welcome to the community writing collective known as SCP where your favorite nightmare or world-ending demon might already have a room designed just for them. Let one of my favorite readers of SCP tales give you the rundown.
Your journey begins here: http://www.scp-wiki.net/ If you like your lore and headcanon the size of a small planet then SCP is your playground. From the silly to the sublime. From the hilarious to the horrific. Did we win an ancient war against a race we now call "Bigfoot"? Are Cain and Able real? Are some stairwells not stairwells? Is some street art carnivorous? What is the Dracula Factory? Should you vacation in UnLondon? How tasty is a bag of holding potatoes? Do living Legos make a good gift if you own Mega Bloks? Can the Hard-to-Destroy Reptile survive stepping on Legos? (I say no.) And what exactly is the Red Spot? Oh yeah. SCP has it all. Some of it is also really, really good writing. Here's an example from TheVolgun, one of my favorite SCP narrators. There are many quality SCP YouTube channels. You owe it to yourself to find one.
So I decided to submit my own SCP for the community to take a look at.
The outcome of all my hard work is....it is about to get deleted. Ha!
Fair enough. Good feedback was given so no complaints. I'll circle back when I can and tweak the submission before seeking community input*. The idea was this:I was trying to relay the idea that the Foundation could
mislabel the normal as an anomaly. It’s the idea of asking when does a series
of coincidences stop being just coincidences. That’s why the decision to label “it”
as SCP-4082 was based on quantity, not quality. That’s also why the “SCP” was a
growing source of debate. Staff within the Foundation were pushing back at what
just happened. When all you have is a hammer the world is full of nails, right? Let me know if this makes sense after you read it.
Item #: SCP-4082 – “Real Heavy”
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures:
SCP-4082 currently has no known means of containment due to its random nature
of manifestation, unknown level of sapience/sentience, and unknown state of
being. However, researcher Larry (redacted) online examination of public blogs
and vlogs has yielded promising statistical glimpses into situations and
individuals likely to have SCP-4082 experiences. His group and individual role playing
exercises using D-class personnel screened for intellectual openness has, so
far, failed to yield a controlled method of manifesting SCP-4082. Experiments
continue.
Description: SCP-4082 is currently
known primarily as an affect without source of cause. Aspects include, but are
not limited to: a greatly enhanced ability to link and cross-reference dissimilar
information, the ability to recall forgotten facts or life experiences, and a
hyper focus on detail. While the attributes are temporary and innocuous on the
surface, dependent upon the circumstances and those involved they can lead to
the disclosure of sensitive or suppressed information. Individuals may also inadvertently
piece together facts on subjects they have no direct experience with including
the anomalous. Note: Seemingly no new information is being introduced to the
person, such as in exposure to SCP-028. All incidents involve information
already known to the person. SCP-4082 may account for spikes in actively suppressed
knowledge being found in children’s books, billboards, song lyrics, video game
cut scenes, the layout of new building construction, and other mundane sources.
While such occurrences should happen due to random chance, the number identified
by Foundation cultural monitors are well above any statistical norm.
SCP-4082 was first observed by Foundation
staff during an offsite, afterhours bar crawl on June (redacted) in (redacted)
located near Site (redacted) in Upstate (redacted). The event was actually a
planned psychological evaluation. The staff at Site (redacted) are comprised
largely of personnel who have received Amnestics, either voluntarily or
involuntarily. One purpose of Site (redacted) is to monitor the mental state of
staff members suffering from psychological or meta-psychological trauma.
The psychologist assigned to the event
was provided a list of thematic elements to monitor for. The evening was
proceeding without incident when Agent (redacted) suddenly paused mid-sentence.
She turned to her co-workers and asked, “Did you ever wonder…” before describing
a theory on the interrelationship of blinking with visible light in relation to
quantum wave collapse in an Observer Created Universe. Her co-workers were jovially
taken aback by this unexpected outpouring. She responded by saying she had read
a few things over the years but had, “…never really thought about them.” Psychologist
(redacted) noted many elements specific to Agent (redacted) wiped memories were
mentioned. The Agent finished by adding, “Makes you think, right?” The psychologist
was considering ending the event when another Agent also said, “Did you ever
wonder…,” before launching into a stream of consciousness about “what size is”
given the infinity of space-time, often decrying the lack of difference between
giants and atoms. The Agent finished with, “Makes you consider the real stuff.
The heavy stuff.” The event was then ended as again the thematic concepts matched
red flag phrases for the Agent. Both Agents were later asked what brought this
on. Each replied, “Not sure.” The incident was reported to Level 3 staff, per
standard operating procedures regarding memetic phenomenon.
Several weeks later the attending psychologist made online
searches of did you ever wonder.
Millions of entries were, of course, found. But, after honing the search with metatags
(redacted), (redacted), and (redacted) several hundred unusual incidents were
found. For example:
1. A vlogger in (redacted) France (a plumber by trade) recounted
a legal case recently brought against him by medical device company (redacted).
He claimed a post about a childhood memory drew the attention of the company’s
lawyers. In the original post he retold how he thought cars worked when he was
two-years-old. Specifically, how the car’s “machine box heart” pumped petrol back
and forth to the wheels making them spin. The memory, he said, suddenly came to
him while drinking through a straw. As
best as he and his lawyer could tell, he is being accused of theft of
intellectual property for releasing the designs of two artificial hearts the
company had in development for several years. He defiantly called the company,
“a collection of lunatics trying to sue a child’s imagination.”
2. A worried parent commented on a homeschool resource site that
their thirteen-year-old son claimed he discovered a language in the arrangement
of Taraxacum officinale petals (common dandelions) growing around (redacted) in
(redacted). The youth deciphered the language after watching documentaries on
modern train design, sports injuries, wall paper, and a history of film editing.
She relayed her son said the petals read, “We are still here.” The location listed
is only two kilometers from SCP-197.
3. A popular blogger in northern India writes on Freudian symbolism
in Hindu mythology before transitioning to mythological symbols in the Middle
East and Africa. This leads to them questioning United Nation actions in
Ethiopia, secret paranormal research groups within the United Nations, Holy Grail
legends, and the veracity of travel bans in certain areas. The blogger normally
writes about Bollywood gossip. When fans asked about this departure from his
normal format he replied, “Not sure. I woke up thinking about it.”
4. A megalithic site unique in all the America’s is discovered
by a retired New Mexico Forest Ranger. The site contains advanced structures,
unusual tools of unknown purposes, and examples of what might be writing. When
asked how he came upon that area he said it was a,” Line of falling dominoes.” After
learning a nearby spot was popular with birdwatchers he, “…got to pondering why
the birds liked it so much. That got me wondering about updrafts, which got me
to thinking about heat, then heat retention, then a whole kinda rope of different
stuff that ended with me grabbing a map. Just knew I wanted to see what was
there in that exact spot. Not sure why it happened like that in my head. It was
fun, I will say that!”
5. A deleted website found via an internet archive yielded a strange
tale. The site’s author recounted her battle with terminal stage 4 breast cancer.
She claimed upon realizing her fate was set that the nature of predation became
apparent. Having been, “…killed from within, killed by the place that should bear
me the greatest kindness, the greatest safety,” she suddenly saw new patterns and
connections in the world around her. She described body language, word usage, and
eye movements until finally what she termed the Totality of Ending. She said
this allowed her to see how the minds of murderers processed other humans. As
her death rapidly approached an idea came to her. One last act of freewill
before the inevitable. She posted an identical profile to three popular dating
sites, advertised the selling of (redacted) on two classified sites, and created
one social media profile. Within one week she was contacted by six individuals.
Five men. One woman. She arranged a date, time, and meeting place with each.
When the day came, however, each of her liaisons arrived early. Each carefully surveyed
the area several times. Finally, each paid close attention to the vehicle that entered
the parking lot and stopped in a secluded spot in the back. With a warm,
relaxed smile and a cheerful wave each walked up to the driver while clutching a
hidden weapon. She knew all this would happen as sure as she knew how to
attract her intended targets. Unfortunately, the cancer would keep her from
knowing what happened next. She would be dead two days when her plan unfolded.
Would they be surprised? She hoped so. Would they spill blood? Oh yes. She was
as confident in that as in her setting of the six scenes. True, the other six had been much harder to court.
Much harder to fool. They were long-term serial killers, after all. But, she
knew how they all thought. She had carefully measured and weighed each pairing
so it would consume only itself and nothing more. Her final post before
deleting the site reflected, albeit briefly, on her actions. “I may have become
a little like those I understand. Why else would I smile when I imagine setting
killers upon killers. Or is it that I enjoy my joke upon Life? Life takes me
from within so I take from it twelvefold. Is my death, the source of my
understanding, a blessing so that I cannot take more? I want to say I will
ponder this, but I won’t. Let false nobility stay among the living. I will die
soon and that takes up a lot of your time.” Foundation researchers have since
confirmed several aspects of her story. In (redacted) during the early Autumn
of (redacted) there were (redacted) reported missing persons cases opened along
with the discovery of (redacted) bodies within a (redacted) mile radius. Two
arrests were made.
The
sheer number of such examples lead the Foundation to declare the phenomenon an
anomalous. Close monitoring, cataloging, and subsequent censoring when required
of such incidents when required is been advised.
Addendum 4082-6:The
recognition of SCP-4082 as an anomaly has become a subject of heated debate
within the Foundation. Many staff members now think there is no SCP-4082. They argue
the Foundation has become so focused on finding SCP’s, so fearful of missing
one, that they are starting to see them where they don’t exist. “A sort of
group Apophenia paired with confirmation bias locked in an echo chamber,” as
one researcher put it. The following
excerpt is from a brief written by Senior Researcher Robert (redacted).
“Have we come to the point where the mind is anomalous?
Sudden insights and flashes of understanding, even if not fully understood at
that moment, are established fixtures in human history. Are we now not opening
the door for this supposed SCP-4082 to come in and lay claim to some of what we
call human innovation and discovery? Or are we laying most of it at its feet? Hell,
why not all of it! Einstein? No, SCP-4082. Mendeleev? No, Scp-4082. Ramanujan?
No, SCP-4082. Questioning the nature of existence with an open mind is part of
why the Foundation exists! Are we now going to rip out the most human of traits
and hand it to some phantom? Here you go!
Thanks for letting us borrow that. What you are saying in this decision is
this: We don’t understand these circumstances; therefore, it can’t be normal.
Ponder that. As for the examples presented, they are indeed curious. Absolutely,
they should be studied. No, they don’t fall outside the parameters and
capabilities of human thought. We of all people should know that. As for Larry’s
role playing experiments with D-class personnel, those should stop immediately. They
are a waste of time and resources. If Larry wants to foster spontaneous thought
he only needs a campfire, a cooler of alcohol, and some good music. Having said
that, if I ever discover he is allowed those items I will quit.” Addendum 4082-21: Based upon Agent (redacted) Wave Collapse/Observer Created Universe observations, Foundation physicists have announced two new theories on why some SCP's seem keyed to human interaction. While only in the thought experiment phase, the development of a so-called Uncertainty Box may lead to safer containment procedures for some of the most dangerous anomalies. It has been described as "combining quantum theory with the Pepper's Ghost Illusion' sp that neither the SCP or the human can be 100% sure either are observing or being observed.
Be seeing you,
Sam
*I made a few format corrections here based upon feedback. :)
