Mike Mariano

Let this be a lesson to those who wish to tell a story over several decades:

I turned on the television this evening to find Channel 9 out of New York broadcasting the Star Trek series Enterprise. The show’s characters were running through hallways, blasting everyone they saw with their phasers. Concurrently, the Enterprise was firing away on the same alien ship that contained the firefight. Ten minutes of warfare—almost no dialogue. The end of the show consisted of a few grim-voiced lines of dialogue about a Vulcan struggling with emotion. Don’t they all?

Immediately after this, the station aired the motion picture Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and the difference in tone is astonishing.

If Enterprise and The Voyage Home didn’t have transporters and pointy ears in common you would never guess that they were part of the same “timeline”. After an endless gun battle, it was refreshing to see only one firearm discharged in Star Trek IV. (And even that was used to melt a door lock.)

And while the original Star Trek’s Spock learns (repeatedly) that a little human emotion can be a good thing, Enterprise leaves us huddled in the dark along with its resident Vulcan, fearing the encroachment of old-fashioned feelings.

I’m sure you could show the original Star Trek crew living in a universe of guns and fear, but why? Isn’t Star Trek about more than macho posturing? Admit it: isn’t Star Trek goofy? And shouldn’t it be proud of it?

You can keep your guns. I’d much rather watch Scotty trying to use a Macintosh any day.

Oh no! Yet another retelling of Medea….

Luckily the New York Times is here to give away the ending to Medea In Jerusalem….

When Jason leaves for his wedding, Medea stuffs a gift for his bride into a backpack and sends her children to the tycoon’s house with it, as she fiddles nervously with her cell phone….

And for my next trick, I’m setting Kiss of the Spider Woman in Guantánamo Bay!

OVER THE WALL!

Walking through the Quaker Bridge Mall this evening, I overheard part of a conversation between two high school-aged girls. I only caught a few sentences, but I’m pretty sure that none of their words contained consonants. They were communicating by doing little more than opening their mouths and giving inflection to the sounds that came out. And this was enough for them to understand each other.

Spend all your life in the same community and you, too, can get away with talking like that. But not many of us do.

We grow up, move around, and learn to adapt to different accents and turns of phrase. We stop mumbling and start speaking like Henry Higgins intended us to. Any actor will tell you that; they have to be prepared to speak to any kind of audience. Mumbling is not an option—bad Brando parodies included.

Seeing those two girls surprised me; they illustrated just how much you can say without saying a single word. They could never get up onstage—or in front of a class—and talk like that. It made me appreciate the memorization and physical labor that goes into using one’s voice in any sort of profession. It’s a steeper hill than I first thought.