Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it
Last week was a sad anniversary. We looked back at how the world changed in just a few minutes one morning 25 years ago.
"You know what?" the City of Garland said. "Scaia needs a happier anniversary. He's really harshing his podcast audience's buzz right now."
Sixty years ago, Star Trek first debuted on television. The It Came from Texas Film Festival celebrated the history and cultural impact of the show and movies.
Loyal Scaiaholics will recall this festival launched the podcast last year. This year, to mark the anniversary (of Star Trek, not the podcast), they showed a series of Khan-related lore.
They started with the episode where the dastardly Ricardo Montalban makes his first appearance then screened Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan then the 2009 reboot. At the library a block away, you could make your own tribble, which seems like a horribly irresponsible decision. Sure, Garland Public Library, they seem cute and cuddly, but did you see how quickly those things got out of control?!
Garland's mayor pro tem oversaw the festival clad in a gold uniform to denote his status among the command personnel.
Chris Ott says he was enamored of the The Twilight Zone as a kid.
"That wasn't a good look for a six year old kid," he explains.
But Star Trek, which had already wrapped up its run, had a "bold, optimistic vision of the future." The show taught lessons and had a Shakespearean cast of characters.
By showing an episode with Khan followed by a movie that was released 13 years later and then another movie with a new cast 27 years after that, Ott says the festival shows how Star Trek tells a "very American story" that's become part of our identity across generations.
If you're wondering what connection Texas has to Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso. Garland renamed a street "Star Trek Lane" back in 1978. It's near Jupiter Rd, Moonglow Dr and Apollo Rd, you know, right in the middle of the "Celestial Street Area".
Ott says Garland is glad to have its connection, but they also called Riverside, Iowa, where Captain Kirk will be born 207 years from now. They exchanged "intergalactic agreements" to "celebrate the franchise's positive influence on popular culture, science, technology, education and shared belief humanity's greatest achievements come through collaboration and discovery."
Garland also called Ticonderoga, New York, where you can tour the set from the original series, but Ott reports they didn't get it. Garland had to send an "ambassador on an intergalactic mission" to get that second intergalactic agreement sorted out.
Star Trek premiered at a time of social upheaval. Kirk and Uhura's kiss was scandalous. Nancy Churning, a theater critic and author, says Nichelle Nichols wanted to leave the series, but Martin Luther King told her what her role meant to him to see a Black woman as an officer and important member of the crew.
Meantime, Spock was there to use logic to speak as an outsider to the issues facing America at the time. He also cut through Bones' emotional nonsense with a message still relevant today for those of us who just marked a sad anniversary.
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