kathleen_dailey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kathleen_dailey) wrote2023-12-09 01:25 pm
kathleen_dailey) wrote2023-12-09 01:25 pm
Entry tags:
- fandom,
- fanfic,
- filk,
- leslie fish,
- music
"A splendid vision of tomorrow"
There's too much tragedy and loss and general awfulness in the greater and smaller world to bear in this so-called season of joy, so I'm practicing a rigorous discipline of RL avoidance and trying to think about nothing but fandom right now.
- While searching for something else, I rediscovered Leslie Fish's 1976 essay, "Why Star Trek?" She writes, "In the end, besides the rare quality of the production, acting and scripts, I think that the root of STAR TREK's appeal lies in its thoughtful and hopeful picture of the future. It shows us a civilization that is not only technologically but socially advanced, populated by intelligent, free-minded people. It's a splendid vision of tomorrow, and I think we'd all like to live there." Now, nearly 50 years after she wrote that, the future we're living in doesn't look much like that of Star Trek. But for many of us the appeal of the vision--and the hopeful belief that it can, must, and will someday exist in reality--is still as compelling as it ever was.
- Thinking about Leslie and all her contributions to SF fandom (as a songwriter, a performer, and an author) led me to go in search of some of my old filk cassettes. The first one I found was the late Suzette Haden Elgin's classic Christmas in Orbit. It's long out of print, and I haven't been able to find a recording of the whole work on the internet. However, the people at FilkCast sometimes feature tracks from the album, and in 2021 they played "The Captain's Carol," which celebrates a future Christmas when "there's peace on the Earth now, and peace in the starlanes," and which never fails to make me simultaneously sad and hopeful. "The Captain's Carol" is the second track, at approximately 4:40. Three more songs from the album can be found in the same episode.
- And on the topic of peace (however fleeting) and the unity of humanity, the track immediately after "The Captain's Carol" is the folklorist John McCutcheon's "Christmas in the Trenches," performed by On the Mark. (To hear the song performed by McCutcheon himself, with a moving introduction explaining the song's unusual provenance, go here.) The song relates a version of the story about the Christmas truce that Leonard McCoy told in Unspoken Truth.
Now to see whether I can persuade my ancient Walkman that it remembers how to play cassettes.
- While searching for something else, I rediscovered Leslie Fish's 1976 essay, "Why Star Trek?" She writes, "In the end, besides the rare quality of the production, acting and scripts, I think that the root of STAR TREK's appeal lies in its thoughtful and hopeful picture of the future. It shows us a civilization that is not only technologically but socially advanced, populated by intelligent, free-minded people. It's a splendid vision of tomorrow, and I think we'd all like to live there." Now, nearly 50 years after she wrote that, the future we're living in doesn't look much like that of Star Trek. But for many of us the appeal of the vision--and the hopeful belief that it can, must, and will someday exist in reality--is still as compelling as it ever was.
- Thinking about Leslie and all her contributions to SF fandom (as a songwriter, a performer, and an author) led me to go in search of some of my old filk cassettes. The first one I found was the late Suzette Haden Elgin's classic Christmas in Orbit. It's long out of print, and I haven't been able to find a recording of the whole work on the internet. However, the people at FilkCast sometimes feature tracks from the album, and in 2021 they played "The Captain's Carol," which celebrates a future Christmas when "there's peace on the Earth now, and peace in the starlanes," and which never fails to make me simultaneously sad and hopeful. "The Captain's Carol" is the second track, at approximately 4:40. Three more songs from the album can be found in the same episode.
- And on the topic of peace (however fleeting) and the unity of humanity, the track immediately after "The Captain's Carol" is the folklorist John McCutcheon's "Christmas in the Trenches," performed by On the Mark. (To hear the song performed by McCutcheon himself, with a moving introduction explaining the song's unusual provenance, go here.) The song relates a version of the story about the Christmas truce that Leonard McCoy told in Unspoken Truth.
Now to see whether I can persuade my ancient Walkman that it remembers how to play cassettes.