On the Coffee Table: The Hernandez Brothers

Title: Love and Rockets

- Human Diastrophism

- Perla la Loca

- Beyond Palomar

- Amor y Cohetes

- Penny Century

- Esperanza

- Luba and Her Family

Writers and artists: Gil, Jaime and Mario Hernandez

Since my last post about the series in August, I've gone on a deep dive with Love and Rockets, powering through seven more trades.  For the most part, each volume is devoted entirely either to Jaime Hernandez's Locas world or Gil Hernandez's Palomar, though few of those are actually set in Palomar anymore, much of the family having moved to Los Angeles.  The exception is Amor y Cohotes which includes unrelated material from each of the two main creators, plus a few stories from brother Mario.  

I won't pretend that over several hundred pages, all of the material is great.  But when Love and Rockets is good, it is astonishingly good.  The greatest strength throughout is the seemingly effortless intimacy.  A few thoughts on specific volumes:

Human Diastrophism

via Amazon

Palomar stories.  The residents suffer through a serial killer and an earthquake.  For the reader, it's rough when terrible things happen to a community you care about.  Kids grow up too fast as decades often pass in just a few pages.  The most interesting story follows Pipo - interesting because the tale told in the images is independent of the one told in the text.

Perla la Loca

via Amazon

Maggie and Hopey start out in Hoppers (LA) but ultimately wind up on separate cross-country adventures.  Loads of wrestling in this one.

Beyond Palomar

This one moves way too fast for me.  Quite a lot of time passes from one panel to the next and it's hard to keep track of it all.  This is also the book where, as the title suggest, the characters start to move away from Palomar to the US.  When they finally do make it back, it feels like coming home for me, too.

Amor y Cohetes

via Amazon

This one is a collection of shorter pieces.  My love for the series relies on absorption and I couldn't get into most of the material here.  However, AyC does include a truly excellent biography of artist Frida Kahlo with images based on her work.

Penny Century

Back to Locas.  One of the most important through stories of L&R is the on-and-off-again love affair between Maggie and Hopey.  They're rarely actually dating.  In fact, they're both usually with other people.  But they still hook up with each other seemingly every chance they get and clearly, it's not just about sex.  There is a potent love between them.

However, it's not exactly equal.  Hopey is the more attached (though also the less dependable) of the two.  At one point in this volume, she muses about the nature of the relationship, basically acknowledging that it's all pretty messed up but in the end, she'll take what she can get from Maggie.  

I've heard people say this in the real world, too.  In effect, they'll take all of the dysfunction over being alone.  Honestly, I've never understood that attitude.  But here, I kind of understand it.  Hopey knows they can never have anything normal.  But she's in love with Maggie.  She doesn't really have a choice.  If it's the mess or nothing, she'll take the mess.

It's still unhealthy.  But I kind of get it.

More wrestling.  

Esperanza

via Amazon

Still with Locas.  Esperanza is Hopey's given name.  Esperanza, of course, is the Spanish word for hope.

The truth is, it's nearly impossible not to fall in love with Maggie.  Most of the other characters do at one point or another.  I kinda did, too.  She's not perfect - far from it.  But she's believable, accessible, vulnerable, unassuming.  Her reflections on her divorce - from a marriage that never even seemed to be especially important to her - comprise my favorite story in the entire series.  

We're also reminded that she's still a kickass mechanic.

And still more wrestling.

Luba and Her Family

via Amazon

Much of this collection is told from the viewpoint of the precocious Venus, Luba's niece, as she writes letters to her cousin back in Palomar.  Venus, probably about 10 years old, is hilarious and her insights into her family are keen.  However, her perspective is far from omniscient.  There's quite a lot of sex going on among the adults, including her own mother's extra-marital affairs.

In my previous post, I proclaimed Palomar to be the superior of the two main worlds.  I've since changed my mind.  Those stories are still good but for me, they lose something after the family moves to the States.  Meanwhile, Maggie and Hopey always draw me back.

I've still got two more trades on my shelves and there are two more beyond that in this series.  At this point, I see no reason not to read all of them.

Star Trek: Rapture

Episode: "Rapture"

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Season 5, Episode 10

Original Air Date: December 30, 1996

via Memory Alpha

On the eve of Bajor's acceptance into the Federation, Captain Sisko has a vision.  The vision leads him to the lost city of B'hala, a site which had eluded archaeologists for thousands of years.  He has more visions - rapturous visions (thus the episode title).  The Prophets are clearly trying to communicate through him as their Emissary.  His own life is at risk, yet he doesn't want to break the connection.  His earthly son Jake is left with a difficult decision.

This episode is vitally important.  Sisko's journey from denial to acceptance of his role as Emissary has been central to his character arc from the beginning.  In "Rapture," for the first time, Sisko fully embraces the reality.  He is the Emissary.  There's no question about it any more.  The implications for his relationships with his family, with Starfleet, with his friends and, of course, with the Bajorans are profound.  

And even with over 2.5 seasons left to go, this shift is another marker of the beginning of the end for this extraordinary Deep Space Nine series.  Being separated from the visioning elicits regret comparable to what Odo felt being separated from The Great Link (see here).  Once again, it is the sort of deep regret that implies a return is inevitable.  For two principals now, we can see points of finality on the horizon - points beyond which we as the viewers are unlikely to be allowed to follow.

I am reasonably certain "Rapture" won't make my Top 10 at series end.  So far, it's only #3 for Season 5 and I know there are still several memorable stories yet to come.  It's another reflection of DS9's remarkable quality.   Not many TOS or TNG episodes are this meaningful.  And it's not just Star Trek.  Very few mainstream television shows have had the courage to go so far down this road.  Like it or not, the Emissary arc is part of what makes DS9 special.

Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Ernest Perry, Jr. played the role of Admiral Charlie Watley, on hand for Bajor's admission ceremony.  Perry was born in Evanston, Illinois, May 30, 1947.  His films include Liar, Liar, The Color of Money and Dunston Checks In.  Other television appearances include Chicago, P.D., The Chi and Turks.  

Perry passed away in 2023.

On the Road: Pro Wrestling GRIND

Andy "Thiccc Daddy" Brown

Ha!  Didn't see this coming, did you?  I will admit that until fairly recently, I wouldn't have had it on my bingo card either.

A couple of Novembers ago, we went to see Judge John Hodgman perform live in Turners Falls, Massachusetts (see my post here).  One of his "cases" was between two professional wrestlers based in a gym in, of all places, Easthampton, Mass., not too far from where our child goes to college.  Before that moment, I had never even considered the possibility that "minor league" pro wrestling was a thing - though I suppose you have to work your way up, just like in any business.  Since then, a couple of developments enhanced the family curiosity in pro wrestling.  Our child discovered WWE and I discovered the comic book series Love & Rockets, which features the sport prominently in some of the Locas stories (see here).  

So we made a plan to go.  We invited my wife to join us but, not shockingly, she passed.  So I headed down on my own this past weekend so the kid and I could go to GRIND's spring season opener, entitled "Brave New World."

It was... exactly what I expected.  My own previous exposure to pro wrestling is limited.  I grew up in the '80s when WrestleMania was born and the sport was achieving its first strong footholds in mainstream culture.  I was introduced to amateur wrestling at around the same time and thought it was awesome.  "Fake" wrestling held significantly less appeal.  So even though going to GRIND was technically my idea, I still went in with considerable reservations. 

It was camp.  It was theatrical.  It was violent.  It was 100% staged and scripted.  It was also 100% impressive and entertaining.

The space was small - a local VFW, not even a high school gym - and intimate.  We were in what started as the back row (they eventually added folding chairs behind us) but never far from the action.  I got nervous every time the wrestlers fell out of the ring (even though I know it was planned).

We got five matches in all: four duals, including a women's match, and a 3-on-3 tag team event.  In as much as I like wrestling at all, I'm a sucker for tag teams.  But the final, main event was the real treat: Perry Von Vicious, the reigning in-house champion, versus Andy Brown, aka Thiccc Daddy.  Even though he was the out-of-town challenger (technically the "bad guy"), Thiccc Daddy first won over the crowd, then won the match and the championship belt with it (see top photo).  He'll also be in GRIND's next event in March.  I'm guessing there's a season-long drama planned.

Mike Graca

Grind OGs vs. The Lost Boys

The victorious OGs

Ridiculous?  Check.  Fun?  Also check.  Most importantly, the kid had a grand old time.  Would I go again?  Maybe.  I don't know if we'll have time to go see GRIND again but there is Green Mountain Wrestling in Montpelier...

The following day, the kid had to work so I had the afternoon to myself.  I perused the guidebook for something I could do that would be less appealing for the rest of my family and thus an ideal choice to explore on my own.  And there it was: the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.

I have passed the silver dome of the Hoops Hall many times on the highway though always on the way to somewhere else.  And that is already one of the biggest selling points of this Hall: it's right off the Interstate.  This stands in notable contrast with baseball's Hall in Cooperstown, New York - a lovely little hamlet but it's in the middle of nowhere.  And the baseball Hall doesn't even have a proper parking lot.  Plus basketball, unlike football, baseball, ice hockey or even rock 'n' roll, has a well-documented origin story.  That story, along with many others, is well-preserved in Springfield.

Interestingly, the kid and I had just had a chat on the walk back from brunch - before I'd even concocted my Springfield plan - about the accessibility of museums.  Accessibility for the disabled, of course, but also the literal separation between exhibit and observer.  For the most part, you can't touch stuff.  Regarding the first consideration, there are a lot of stairs at the Hoops Hall, but also a lot of elevators.  Much of what is behind glass is at a relatively low eye-level so a person in a wheelchair would be able to see them easily.

Regarding the second consideration, the first thing you see when you get off the elevator at the beginning of the tour is a wall with brass (maybe copper?) basketballs on a wall with actual players' handprints on them.  The idea is to see how your own hand measures up.  Surprise, surprise, the average star basketball player's hand is enormous.  Next, you walk around a ring to see how you measure up in height with NBA and WNBA players, beginning with Muggsy Bogues (one of my all-time favorite athletes) at 5'3" and ending with Yao Ming at 7'6".  So even before you get to the other exhibits, you've established yourself in the physical world of the players.

Then the Wall of Honor, when you finally get to it near the end of the tour, is just a wall of names, no plaques.  Instead of plaques, there are huge touch screens so you can easily find the stars you care the most about - again, a tactile experience.  I found all of the Georgetown Hoyas and Washington Wizards (then the Bullets) greats.  

The entire museum surrounds a basketball court, viewable from each level and completely open for people to shoot around with their friends, their kids, whomever.  The Hall truly is built around the love of the game itself.

Best of all, the women's game is celebrated on equal footing.  Every space of the Hall that honors men also honors women.  They are not shoved away into a corner.  For the moment, more of the "stuff" is for the men than for the women but it's obvious that's changing in a hurry.  We're living in the Age of Caitlin Clark and the face of basketball is increasingly female.  The Hall is doing its part to encourage that.

I do have one criticism: not enough books in the gift shop.  I know there are books about basketball because I've read them and reviewed quite a lot of them here on The Squid.  There were a few books.  There should have been a lot more.

Squiddies 2025

The Armchair Squid turns sixteen years old today.  It's time to hand out some hardware.  The Squiddy goes to...

Biggest Surprise: Casablanca

Morocco wasn't even the point of our late-February/early-March trip.  Royal Air Maroc had the best airfares for getting to Andalusia.  Why not extend what was already a long layover in Casablanca?  We could add another country - indeed, another continent - to our life lists.  Is Casablanca even that exciting a city?  According to the guidebooks and the websites, not really.  But if we're going to go at all, let's not spend half the time trying to get somewhere else.  Let's make the most of where the plane lands.

Well, wouldn't you know it.  Casablanca knocked our socks off.  No, it's not a tourist trap and that was perfectly fine after our more conventional adventures in Spain.  It's just a city where people go about their daily lives - people who let us walk in their midst for a while, mostly ignoring us, to be honest.  My friends, it was grand.  That's what real traveling is - not gawking but simply being.  Fly on the wall rather than sightseer.  No long lines.  No tour guides.  Just life.

I'd live there for years given the chance.  It's been a long time since I've felt that way about a place.

Biggest Disappointment: Trump's Second Term

Is disappointment even the right word?  Donald Trump's narcissistic lust for tyranny is not exactly a secret.  And yet, my country voted him back into the Presidency.  I guess that is my disappointment.  I'm still amazed and deeply discouraged that so many people aren't horrified by him.  They want this.  All of the bigotry, misogyny, contempt, incompetence, recklessness, dishonesty, crassness, arrogance, pettiness, the near-daily betrayals - they aren't dealbreakers.  Folks, that says a lot more about us than it does about him.  

And the feeble response of the Democrats in Congress has been appalling.

I fear for the present and the future.  Even if we can turn this around, the mess to clean up will be huge.  Plenty of the damage can never be entirely undone.

And that is what they want.

Best Read: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

We're living in interesting times.  It can be difficult to know what to say to people.  The Right is so... programmed.  They all watch the same news shows, visit the same websites, watch the same TikTok videos, stick to the same talking points as if they are gospel.  Even imagine they are gospel.  Even when they're in clear defiance of gospel.  

I'm veering off point.

If you're looking to make solid progressive arguments, Reni Eddo-Lodge's book is a great reference.  More importantly, it's an essential read for white people to better understand the racially-framed experiences of people of color.  Systemic racism is real whether you believe in it or not.  So is privilege.  The question is what you do with truth once it's presented to you.  

Thanks to my ex-pat time in Japan, I still have several British friends.  A few of them believe racial injustice is an American problem and not a British one.  I really want them to read this book.

You should, too.

Best Comics Find: Love and Rockets by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez

via Wikipedia

I've been aggressively exploring the comic book medium for over a decade now and practically the instant my curiosity took me beyond Marvel and DC, I started hearing about Love and Rockets.  First launched in the early '80s, L&R is considered by many to be the most important and influential indy comic in the American industry.  I'd never read it until this summer.  Now I'm hooked.

Why is L&R so good?  The characters are so real you can practically smell them.  You experience their love, their pain, their shame, their thrills, their lusts, their losses because you are sitting next to them on the couch, feeling awkward as Maggie and Hopey start making out right in front of you, forgetting you're there.  It's the same reason Scorcese films are amazing.  These aren't strangers.  They're the young squatters in the house next door with sketchy friends stopping by all the time.  They occasionally ask you to buy beer for them because they're not old enough yet.  They're the rowdy group of young men talking too loudly in the street late at night outside your front door.  Or it's even closer.  You're in the street with them, annoyed by the stuffy old geezer who keeps telling you to shut up and go home.  

This intimacy is achieved so elegantly you don't notice until after you've been absorbed.  Every storytelling experience should be like this, yet it rarely is.  Without question, L&R is a masterpiece.

Athlete of the Year: Ichiro Suzuki

via Wikipedia

The Armchair Squid began life as a sports blog but I rarely return to the subject anymore.  Of the athletes I did mention over the past twelve months, no one had a better year than Ichiro Suzuki.

In late July, Ichiro became the first Japanese-born player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  Ichiro was simultaneously the greatest contact hitter, the greatest leadoff man, the greatest outfield arm and the most internationally beloved player of his generation.  Just one unbelievable stat of many: for ten consecutive seasons, Ichiro had at least 206 hits.  Ty Cobb can't claim that, nor Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Rod Carew nor any of the other great contact hitters.  In fact, no one else has even come close.  Pete Rose also had ten seasons with 200+ but never more than three in a row.  Sports fans are forever talking about "records that will never be broken," then Alex Ovechkin surpasses Gretzky's once-unassailable career goals total.  I feel 100% safe saying that Ichiro's ten consecutive years with 206 hits or more is untouchable. 

During his career, there was discussion of whether Ichiro could truly be considered one of the all-time greats, having spent so much of his early career in Japan.  In the end, the Major League numbers alone were plenty: 3,089 hits, .311 lifetime batting average, 509 stolen bases, 10 All-Star Games, 10 Gold Gloves.  The years in Japan only pad the already sterling resume.  Without a doubt, he was one of the greatest athletes in American sports for nearly two decades.

Best Family Adventure: The Alhambra

The Alhambra in Granada, Spain was the main target for our aforementioned February/March trip.  The Alhambra, a UNESCO heritage site considered by many to be the most beautiful man-made structure in the world, has been at or near the top of my travel wish list for as long as I have known it existed, over 30 years.  With such high expectations, a let down is practically inevitable.  Even while we were there, I worried I wasn't doing enough to appreciate what I was seeing.

I needn't have worried.  The Alhambra is an experience that invades your soul.  Now, just a few months later, it feels like a dream.  Were we really there?  I remember our last day in Granada, already wistful over the fact that we had to leave.  Already thinking of how to make the most of the next visit, knowing full well it might never happen because life is like that.  

So, yeah.  I read all of that and it sure looks like I had a great year.

Apart from Trump.

Fuck Trump!

On the Coffee Table: Love and Rockets

Title: Love and Rockets

- Maggie the Mechanic

- Heartbreak Soup

- The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.

Writers and Artists: Jaime Hernandez (for Maggie the Mechanic and The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.) and Gilbert Hernandez (for Heartbreak Soup)

via Amazon

In 1981, the Hernandez brothers - Gilbert, Jaime and Mario - self-published the first issue of Love and Rockets (L&R).  Many consider L&R to be not merely an independent comic but the independent comic.  Even 40+ years later, the American comic book industry is still dominated by the superheroes of the Marvel and DC universes.  Stories about "real life" are the rare exception.  Throw in the fact that L&R showcased Latinx characters in a medium that has always been white-dominated and queer characters long before they were fashionable in any medium and you have the seeds for something genuinely different.  

But of course, L&R is more than merely novel.  The quality of the work and the sophistication of the storytelling are astonishing.  This was my introduction.

L&R lives in two separate story threads (sometimes more) created independently by two different brothers.  Locas is Jaime's world.  Maggie and Hopey are friends and occasionally lovers.  They're both late-teenagers (out of high school but can't drink legally yet) in LA's punk scene.  Narrative perspective shifts freely in both worlds though, at least so far, most Locas stories follow Maggie, the saner, more relatable of the two.  There are low-grade sci-fi elements.  Maggie works occasionally as a space rocket mechanic, particularly in the beginning.  A couple of female professional wrestlers play prominent roles in some of the stories.  No, seriously.

via Amazon

Gil's characters live in Palomar, a fictional village in Central America.  While Locas is very good, Palomar is the real treat.  We follow the residents as they grow up together.  They develop deep friendships, they quarrel, they get each other pregnant, they marry and divorce, they even occasionally kill each other.  It's like a soap opera but better because the characters are fully dimensional.  You fall in love with one of them, then learn about their past sins.  You come to loathe one of them, then learn about their pain.  There's always more to the story.

via Amazon

In both threads, characters age, lose and gain weight, change hairstyles, etc.  They have believable insecurities.  In short, they're allowed plenty of room to be human.  Historically, the Hernandezes have earned a lot of praise for exhibiting a wide range of (relatively) realistic body types, especially for their female characters.  I would argue their portrayal of women is not without its shortcomings but it's still far better than what you'd see from their mainstream contemporaries.  

There's loads of nudity, violence, substance abuse, sex and so on.  So, L&R is not for little kids.  Teens and up are probably best, especially if they have a trusted adult to talk to about some of the rougher material.  While there are otherworldly elements, the power comes with the realism.  I can hardly wait for more. 

On the Coffee Table: Yani Hu

Title: Udon Noodle Soup: Little Tales for Little Things

Writer and Artist: Yani Hu

via Amazon

Udon Noodle Soup is a graphic-novel collection of short stories by Chinese-born creator Yani Hu.  As clearly indicated by the subtitle, the subjects are the simple objects that connect people in a life: the flavor of a soup, the warmth of a hand-knit sweater, a used toothbrush, a thoughtful gift, a soccer jersey.  

I was born a sentimental old fool so stories like these tug at me.  I don't let go of anything or anyone easily.  Held onto tchotchkes for way too long because they remind me of people?  Yes, I've done that.  Remembered old friends decades past the point when they've likely and understandably forgotten all about me?  All the time.  There are morals in Hu's tales, too, reminders of how cruel we can be to those who are unexpectedly generous.  It's easy to feel sorry for oneself in life - put upon, even victimized.  It's important to remember the moments we've been on the receiving end of more kindness than we've deserved.

Udon Noodle Soup is a soothing, quick read with beautiful, manga-style artwork.  It's Hu's first work in English.  I'll keep an eye out for more.

Star Trek: Ex Post Facto

Episode: "Ex Post Facto"

Series: Star Trek: Voyager

Season 1, Episode 8

Original Air Date: February 27, 1995

via Memory Alpha

Tom Paris has committed murder, or so the Banea would have us all believe.  While visiting the Banean homeworld, Paris and Kim meet a physicist, Tolen Ren, and asks him for help in repairing Voyager's collimator.  The accommodating Dr. Ren invites his new friends to his home for dinner where they meet his beautiful wife, Lidell.  Playboy Tom instantly falls for her and naturally, that's where the trouble begins.  The doctor is killed and Tom stands accused on the strength of damning evidence.  The victim's own memories of the crime are replayed at the trial.  The punishment is cruel.  Those same memories are implanted in Tom's brain where he will experience them every 14 hours for the rest of his life.

Obviously, all of this eventually gets sorted out cleverly and Tom is absolved.  Tuvok plays the Holmes/Poirot sleuth role.  The final clue is derived directly from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1892 short story, "The Adventure of Silver Blaze," included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  

"Ex Post Facto" is, in many ways, a rehash of the NextGen Season 3 episode "A Matter of Perspective," in turn inspired by Rashomon, the Kurosawa masterpiece.  However, there are important differences.  There's no attempted rape element this time which significantly reduces the ickiness.  Also, while Riker is technically acquitted, Manua, who accused him of trying to rape her, genuinely believed she was attacked.  Even Counselor Troi acknowledges that.  So his "innocence" is not 100% clear.  While Tom certainly comes off as a cad in this week's story, no one accuses him of rape.

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Ethan Phillips (Neelix) was born in Garden City, New York, February 8, 1955.  His father was the owner of Frankie & Johnnie's a Manhattan steakhouse, originally a speakeasy.  Phillips studied at Boston University and Cornell.

Phillips's stage resume is impressive, even by Star Trek standards.  During a revival of Eccentricities of a Nightingale, legendary playwright Tennessee Williams wrote a new monologue for Phillips.  He performed in Measure for Measure with Kevin Kline.  He was in the Broadway premier of My Favorite Year.  His stage work has continued post-Trek, appearing in the premier of David Mamut's November, Best Play Tony winner All the Way and the Broadway premier of Junk: The Golden Age of Debt.

Before Voyager, Phillips, like René Auberjonois, was in the principal cast of Benson, playing Pete Downey for five seasons.  He also made guest appearances on L.A. Law, JAG and Star Trek: The Next Generation as the Ferengi doctor Farek in "Ménage à Troi."  Films include Ragtime, Lean on Me and Green Card.  

On the Coffee Table: Lisa Moore Ramée

Title: A Good Kind of Trouble

Author: Lisa Moore Ramée

via Amazon

Shayla Willows is starting the seventh grade at Emerson Junior High in southern California.  She manages all of the usual struggles of adolescence: awkward physical changes, evolving friendships, family dynamics, academics (though that part seems to come easily to her), etc.  She also struggles to find her racial identity, some peers telling her she's not Black enough.  Meanwhile, in the broader world, Black people are getting shot by police officers.  As a result, the Black Lives Matter movement becomes an important part of Shayla's journey.

A Good Kind of Trouble is rated "middle grade."  While it deals with heavy subjects like racism, murder and injustice, the material isn't graphic enough to require a move to the YA shelves.  It's not an obvious book choice for a middle-aged man but I enjoyed it.  It's a quick read.  I breezed through all 358 pages in under 24 hours.  I'm grateful for the honest and challenging perspective of a young person of color.  As both educator and world citizen, I need more of that.  

It's a hopeful story.  Shayla's struggles are painful but there are plenty of successes along the way.  She makes new friends and manages to keep the old (one is silver and the other...).  She discovers unexpected talent and grit when she joins the track team.  She finds both a place in her new community and a voice for protest and social change.  

Ramée alludes to, but never directly addresses, homosexuality and homophobia.  It is strongly implied that both a favorite teacher and Shayla's older sister Hana are gay, though the text never says so explicitly.  In fact, it's pretty clear Shayla doesn't see it in either case - more of a wink and a nod to the reader.  It's a tricky topic in today's publishing world, especially in youth literature.

Overall, it's a strong book, both readable and relatable.

Star Trek: The Maquis, Part I

Episode: "The Maquis, Part I"

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Season 2, Episode 20

Original Air Date: April 24, 1994

via Memory Alpha

A Cardassian freighter explodes immediately after leaving space dock.  Our heroes deduce that it was the result of a deliberate attack and what's more, Federation technology was used to do the job.  We soon learn there's a new player in the neighborhood.  Federation colonists in the Demilitarized Zone are initiating terrorist attacks against Cardassian targets and Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hudson, an old friend of Commander Sisko's, is one of their leaders.

The story introduces the Maquis, a group with a notable future in the franchise.  A new series was set to launch in January 1995 and the Maquis would have a role to play, especially in the early stages.  Otherwise, I feel this first part suffers from slow pacing.  I like Hudson (Bernie Casey) just fine and the basic premise is alright.  But the narrative drags.  

On the other hand, Gul Dukat gets excellent character development.  First, he breaks into the Sisko quarters, scaring the bejesus out of Ben when he arrives home, but still convinces the commander to join him in a deeper investigation of the freighter explosion.  Later, Ben softens when he learns Dukat is, himself, a father of seven.  Finally, as part of the double-pronged cliffhanger, Dukat is kidnapped by the Maquis and will obviously need to be rescued by Starfleet.  That's quite a lot of range granted to a secondary character in a single episode.

Dukat also gets the best line, an homage to George Orwell's 1984:  "Education is power.  Joy is vulnerability."

In the B plot, Quark makes a friend, a beautiful Vulcan named Sakonna who we eventually learn is a member of the Maquis.  Quark tries to seduce Sakonna as both lover and business partner, ultimately more successful in the latter than the former.  Quark serves her Vulcan port, the first mention or appearance of such a beverage.  It's a darker blue than Romulan ale, edging towards indigo.  Surprisingly (and a little disappointingly), the internet offers no recipes.

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Bernie Casey was born June 8, 1939 in Wyco, West Virginia.  He attended Bowling Green State University where he established himself as one of the premier college athletes in the country.  He was a small college All-American in football and a record-breaking high hurdler on the track, earning an invitation to the US Olympic Trials in 1960.  He played in the NFL for eight seasons - six years for the 49ers, two for the Rams - serving variously at flanker, halfback and tight end.  He made the Pro Bowl in 1967.

Casey made his acting debut in in Guns of the Magnificent Seven, a sequel to The Magnificent Seven.  Other films included Brian's Song, Never Say Never Again, Revenge of the Nerds and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  He was a popular choice for mid-'90s sci-fi television.  In addition to Trek, he made guest appearances on both SeaQuest 2032 and Babylon 5.

 Casey passed away in 2017 after a stroke.

On the Coffee Table: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

via Wikipedia

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes collects twelve short stories about the world's most famous detective.  It is the final Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1927, three years before the author's death.  Critics often rate this final volume as the weakest of the short story collections, though I feel a few of the tales are worthy of note.  "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" and "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" are unusual for the fact they are told from Holmes's perspective whereas the vast majority of stories are told from Watson's.  I appreciate "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" for the rare glimpse of Holmes's deep, genuine affection for Watson.  Some of the stories veer toward other genres.  In "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," for instance, a former rugby star hires Holmes to figure out what is going on with his wife, whom he caught sucking their baby's blood at the neck.  

And so, I have reached the end of my Holmes exploration, unlikely to seek out the few uncollected stories.  I thoroughly enjoyed my romp.  I was never able to get past seeing Sherlock as Benedict Cumberbatch in 21st century garb, though Watson has a more Victorian image in my mind's eye, complete with mustache and bowler hat.  I generally preferred the short stories to the novels.  While Holmes nearly always arrives at the truth, my favorite stories are the ones in which he fails, best of all when he is out-maneuvered by a woman.

As such, my favorite story of all is one of the earliest:  "A Scandal in Bohemia," featuring Irene Adler.  Adler is one of several characters who feature more prominently in adaptations than in the original Doyle texts.  Nemesis Moriarty and brother Mycroft fall into the same category.  "Bohemia" is, in fact, Adler's only appearance in the originals.  

I am curious now about the numerous adaptations and will keep my eye out for them, especially the various earlier British television series.  

Squiddies 2022

The Armchair Squid turns thirteen years old today.  It's time to hand out some hardware.  The Squiddy goes to...

Biggest Surprise: Baltimore Orioles

In February, in my post about The MVP Machine by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik, I wondered who on my beloved baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles, would be this year's big surprise.  It turned out to be the whole darn squad.  Projected to lose 100 games this season, they're in the thick of the playoff race in late August.  Previously undistinguished players like outfielder Austin Hays and shortstop Jorge Mateo are making significant contributions.  Rookie Adley Rutschman has quickly established himself as the best catcher in the Major Leagues.  Most amazing of all, the Orioles took a bunch of cast-off relief pitchers and somehow combined them into one of the strongest bullpens in baseball.  And the team is fun to watch.  They believe in themselves and their enthusiasm is highly infectious.

It's possible the team's surge came too late for them to make the playoffs this year.  But with even more prospects yet to emerge from the still highest-ranked farm system, it feels like perennial contention is not far off.  It's been a long time since Baltimore has been this excited about baseball.

Go, Birds!

Biggest Disappointment: Nichelle Nichols's Passing

Actress Nichelle Nichols, Uhura of Star Trek's original series, passed away from heart failure on July 30th.  She was the first Black woman to have a regular role on an American television show as anything other than a servant.  Her on-screen kiss with William Shatner was a revolution all its own.  But if you know Star Trek, you know that Uhura was so much more.  She was the emotional heart of the Enterprise bridge crew - in many ways, the most human character of all.

And Nichelle Nichols was more than just Uhura.  A triple threat, she was an accomplished dancer and singer who toured with both Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.  Beyond the performing arts, she worked with NASA to recruit both minority and female personnel.  

89 years is a long life.  Even so, Star Trek's light noticeably dimmed with Nichols's passing.  Her legacy is secure.

Best Read, First Time Category: I Came As a Shadow by John Thompson

via Wikipedia

This wasn't an easy choice.  I had three five-star reads over the past twelve months.  I'll discuss the other two with the next award.  The autobiography of longtime Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson gave me a peak behind the curtain of my childhood, offering insights into a team I love and also the community where I grew up.  It's hard to compete with that.  Given the choice, I'd rather read more books like I Came As a Shadow than either of the other two.  The big guy wins again.

Best Comics Find: Daredevil: Born Again

via Wikipedia

My other two top reads were both comics: Sonny Liew's The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye and the Born Again story arc from Marvel's Daredevil series.  Liew's faux-biographical history of Singapore is extraordinary but Born Again goes on a short list of the best English-language comics I've ever read.   The arc, originally published in issues 227-233 in 1986, was written by Frank Miller and drawn by David Mazzuchelli.

The Kingpin learns of Daredevil's secret identity and sets about ruining Matt Murdock's life.  Murdock/Daredevil exacts his revenge.  Simple premise.  The magic is in the telling.  The world-building is exemplary.  We hear, feel and smell Hell's Kitchen as well as we see it.  We share in Murdock's all-too-real life pain.  We delight in his relief when all comes right.

It's hard to top a simple story beautifully told.

That's two years in a row for both Miller and Daredevil in this spot.

Athlete of the Year: Buck O'Neil (1911-2006)

In 2006, mere months before his death, Buck O'Neil was passed over for induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  This year, he finally made it.

On the merits of his career as player and manager in the Negro Leagues, O'Neil was an understandably marginal candidate for the honor.  But his broader contributions as a goodwill ambassador for the sport were exceptional.  Anyone who has watched Ken Burns's Baseball series knows that Buck O'Neil was a master storyteller in a sport that values the skill.  Written records of the Negro Leagues are relatively scarce so the oral history provided by O'Neil and others are essential.  If you wish to know more about this extraordinary man, I can't recommend Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America highly enough.  No joke, you'll feel better about humanity after you've read it.

Even before his official induction, Buck O'Neil had a larger presence in the Hall than most.  After he died, the museum gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award.  Today, a life-sized statue of O'Neil greets visitors as they enter the museum's exhibit halls.

Best Family Adventure: High School Graduation

Our child graduated from high school in June.  For the second time in my life, I felt my place in the universe shift.  The first time was the day she was born.  Looking into her eyes for the first time, I realized I was no longer the central character of my own story.  Her high school graduation (even more than my own) felt like an arrival point - a brief one, to be sure, but certainly the most significant moment of transition since the birth itself.  We'll always be her parents, of course, but the job has qualitatively changed forever.

We've got another big transition coming right soon.  It's been wonderful to savor this particular life moment between the two this summer.

On the Coffee Table: John Thompson

Title: I Came As a Shadow: An Autobiography

Author: John Thompson (with Jesse Washington)

via Amazon

John Thompson, Jr. (1941-2020) was the head men's basketball coach at Georgetown University, 1972-99.  He was the first Black coach to win a national championship.  Those are the basics of one of the most extraordinary stories in American sports.

The Georgetown Hoyas have been my team since their glory days in the 1980s.  I have written about my love for the program many times, most comprehensively in one of my earliest posts.  When I say that John Thompson shaped my concept of what college basketball is supposed to be, I'm not exaggerating.  I learned much of what I know about the sport from watching his games.  So, I was always going to read his autobiography and I was always going to love it.

Thompson was more than just a coach.  He became a symbol in the Black community, especially in Washington, DC, a city that was still 70% Black in the '80s.  (Sadly, because of gentrification, Blacks no longer make up the majority of the population in our nation's capital.) John Thompson was an enormous Black man - 6'10", nearly 270 pounds - and unapologetic for expressing himself emotionally.  Thompson didn't yell at the refs any more passionately than his shorter white contemporaries did but he was fully aware that the world, even the basketball world, sees you differently when you're a large Black man.  What's more, he used his public position to advocate effectively for Black coaches and players, within his own program and beyond.  

I learned a lot from I Came As a Shadow.  I loved all of the basketball material, of course, but even more meaningful were Thompson's insights about growing up as a Black man in the Washington area.  Part of what set Thompson apart as an icon in the city - one different from the also enormously popular Barack Obama, for instance - was the fact that he was born and raised in DC.  Obviously, his life was different - in ways both better and worse - than I might have expected as a white kid in the suburbs a generation later.  He also had some not so flattering insights to share about Chevy Chase, an affluent town on the Maryland/DC border that I know quite well indeed.  I grew up believing my community was a lot more progressive than it actually was and I've really only come to terms with the darker reality in the past few years.  Unfortunately, Thompson's experiences confirmed my suspicions.

Still, most of the book is basketball.  The behind the curtain perspective on Thompson's teams - both the great and the not so great - is wonderful.  Coach Thompson shared a lot about how the Hoyas, as the first high profile college team with a Black coach and all Black players, became the team everyone loved to hate.  He grew to resent the word intimidating consistently used to describe him and his team, rather than giving them credit for being intelligent and well-prepared.  I would never have seen it that way at the time but now, one has to concede that he was right to be bothered.  The Hoyas certainly were a physically aggressive team but so was everybody else in the Big East conference.  Georgetown wouldn't have won as many games as they did if they couldn't dish it out as good as they got.  But they were unfairly characterized as goons and race definitely played a role in that.

Through it all, his program, at its best, was amazing.  I would happily watch those teams play in that league for the rest of my life.  Thompson writes warmly and extensively about each of his future Hall of Famers: Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson.  He also expresses tremendous pride for some of the players who excelled in life pursuits other than basketball.  Not all of the stories had happy endings but overall, it's impossible not to be impressed by all of the good his program came to represent.  

One note, because my high school Russian history teacher (Long live, the Tsar!) would scold me if I didn't point this out: Thompson, head coach of the Olympic team in 1988, repeatedly referred to the Soviet Union's team as "the Russians" when in fact the biggest stars of that team were Lithuanian, not Russian at all.

Again, I was an easy sell for this book.  It's impossible for me to be objective given my love for the subject.  That said, Thompson and his ghost writer Jesse Washington did a great job.  I Came As a Shadow is a tremendously enjoyable read.  Any autobiography can come off as narcissistic but while he certainly wasn't reluctant to toot his own horn, Thompson was vulnerable enough to share his shortcomings.  He's also honest about his more self-interested motivations.  My admiration for John Thompson, already considerable, has only increased.

On the Coffee Table: Copper

Title: Copper

Writer and Artist: Kazu Kibuishi

via Goodreads

Copper is a web comic by Kazu Kibuishi, the creator of the Amulet series and other projects.  Each story is a Sunday newspaper-style comic strip.  Homages to the classics are clearly evident.  Copper's relationship with his dog Fred is highly reminiscent of that between Calvin and Hobbes, though Copper's older and mellower than Calvin and Fred's more pessimistic than Hobbes.  The jagged black strip against yellow of Charlie Brown's traditional garb is a frequent visual motif.  Fred is sort of the anti-Snoopy.  

Some of the strips are set in the "real world" but many inhabit trippy dreamscapes: a first-person shooter game (where Copper gets too caught up in admiring the scenery), a world of mushrooms, surreal abstraction.  In a couple of stories, they go surfing.  My two favorite strips are "Waterfall" and "Good Life," both CalvinHobbesesque tramps through the woods.  Kizuishi shares a love of funky flying contraptions with Hayao Miyazaki and I sense some artistic influence as well.

I would describe the driving philosophy as happy fatalism which I learned of years ago from John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire.  According to Irving: "The way the world worked was not cause for some sort of blanket cynicism or sophomoric despair... the way the world worked – which was badly – was just a strong incentive to live purposefully, and to be determined about living well."

Kibuishi closes with an artistic process section, material I always enjoy.  

Overall, Copper is a fun, quick, rewarding read.

On the Coffee Table: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

via Wikipedia

The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a 1905 collection of short stories originally published in Strand Magazine between 1903 and 1904.  Of course, there was the small matter that Doyle had killed off his outrageously popular hero in "The Final Problem," in 1893.  While the author was able to circumvent the issue with The Hound of the Baskervilles by setting the story earlier in the fictional timeline, Doyle's new stories required a resurrection in the initial offering of the new collection, "The Adventure of the Empty House."  At the end of this book, in "The Adventure of the Second Stain," Doyle tried to give himself another out by claiming Holmes had retired.  

But there are still three more books after this one.

My favorites in The Return of Sherlock Holmes include the aforementioned "Second Stain," "The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter" about a missing rugby player and "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" which involves codebreaking, always fun.  We get a strong sense of Morality According to Holmes in this volume.  Not infrequently, he lets the "guilty" party get away when he believes their cause just.

On the Coffee Table: Charles Duhigg

Title: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Author: Charles Duhigg

via Amazon

Habits rule our lives in ways we don't even notice.  That's the point, after all.  Habits are the things we do without thinking.  It's the simple routines: you floss before you brush, you put on the right sock before the left, you always leave your keys in the same place so you can find them easily, etc.  It's the more complex operations, too: you always follow the same route when you walk your dog.  Some of them, like smoking after a meal or always having dessert even if you're not exactly hungry for it, are deeply unhealthy.  Others, like eating fruits and vegetables every day, can prolong your life.  Charles Duhigg explores all of this and more.  Most importantly, and optimistically, he demonstrates how bad habits can be transformed into good ones.

Duhigg devotes a lot of the book to self-destructive personal habits: alcoholism, gambling addiction, overeating, etc.  However, he also explores how the manipulation of habits - on both the individual and interpersonal levels - can transform organizations like Starbucks, Alcoa or the Indianapolis Colts.  Further, he chronicles how all-time champion swimmer Michael Phelps used the power of habit to excel.  On the Big Brother end of things, he exposes how companies, particularly Target, are able to monitor customers' habits in order to successfully predict who is likely to buy what and when.  

A couple of principles were particularly interesting to me.  The first is the idea of "keystone" habits.  Exercise is a good example.  When someone successfully establishes a habit of regular exercise, they start to form other good habits along with it.  They sleep better.  They eat better.  I can confirm: my life definitely feels better balanced when I am exercising regularly.  Other keystone habits are less appealing to me: bed making, for instance.  I don't believe in it.

"Inflection points" are moments when an individual is confronted with a choice.  For instance, a Starbucks barista is chewed out by an angry customer.  The employee can react in a variety of ways, many of them reflexive and counterproductive.  But if such an employee plans a different, healthier reaction ahead of time, the likelihood of a positive outcome increases significantly.  The possible applications to public education, my own profession, are obvious.

I'll definitely be keeping The Power of Habit around.  I didn't read the book's appendix (I usually skip that, along with any Roman numeral pages in the beginning) but I expect I will at some point as it's all about how to use Duhigg's principals in one's own life.  

But I'm still not going to make my bed.