...being the observations and navigational extracts
from the ongoing expeditions of San Francisco Piano Pop trio
True Margrit

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The Sci Fi Gene (or Help! That Dingo Got My Wall.E)

**Depending on your level of purism, it could be said there are spoilers here...**

There are mysteries sewn into the very fabric of existence and they cannot by any means be traced without unraveling the unravelable and thus causing further mystification. Mysteries like: where the hell did we really come from and to where do we really go after this plane of being, what is the seat of consciousness, why is time linear ( or is it?), will humans survive on this benighted planet, who will win Wimbledon and, why does science fiction leave some folks cold, while the rest of us, well, we others just can't get enough of sci fi. As to the latter question: I suppose that it's genetic perhaps--like curling your tongue, blue versus brown eyes, the weird way asparagus makes some pee-ers' urine aroma change, an affinity for disco versus country versus musical theatre versus metal, etcetera ( for examples), a taste for coconut, and so on and on.

And thus to those of who have the correct gene, Wall.E's character/ personhood is so DANG APPEALING! What is that? That whole R2D2-meets-Johnny 5-meets-ET-meets the Tinman, Chaplin, Pinnochio, Yoda, and a lovelorn puppy thing? Or is it his fetchingly melancholy binocular eyes? His jazz-patch of rust? His mellifluous voice? His killer dance moves? Hi badass crib? His wonderfully contradictory machiney humanity? His profound epic loneliness? His all-too-familiar frailties ( frailty thy name is Wall.E) ? Yes yes--all this and more, oh, that ineffable more, which causes our inner mother -ducks to imprint on this unlikely little metal duckling. When he gets repeatedly banged up in the course of robot events...OUCH! The tears! I had to remind myself that the film is after all G-rated and the protagonist has a great statistical advantage, as such, for survival. But it is nonetheless nerve shattering watching dingos making sport--as it were--with one's baby...

Ah. But I wax demented, nay?

Nonetheless, the larger question of the appeal of sci fi--in a word ( well, in five words), it makes one's head explode. But it's a dry explode. Sci Fi says to you: "Imagine this possible future, if you will." and when the setup & delivery & execution have that special blend of inevitability, novelty, and humanity you say " WHOA". For example Did y'all catch the latest cliffhanger (hmm, nebula hanger?) from Battlestar Galactica--OH LORDY! It doesn't start up again until 2009! DAMN! Anyway, it is clear with these two great universes--Wall.E & Battlestar--that science fiction is going through some fabulous peak phase.

And what a phase independent music is about to go through when our new CD comes out in the gleaming utopian future. It's true--not sci fi.


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