SF for boys AND girls!

A recent report on radio speculated as to why fans of science fiction are, in the main, male, since so many science fiction authors are female. I think there is confusion here: males constitute the majority of the fan base for SF on screen, but the literature is read by both sexes. I've said it before, but SF on TV and in movies is about eighty years behind the literature, with some honourable exceptions. Most people equate SF with Star Trek, Star Wars and so on, but a lot of the stories carried in these series are mainstream fiction in a science fiction setting. When I watch this stuff, I often think, "why is this classed as SF?", because the same story could be told in almost any genre, or even in a non-genre form. The SF is simply set dressing.

Anyway, I've allowed myself to become distracted, because I was going to write about the 2003 TV series Firefly, but when I started thinking about it, I realised that this series had something in it to appeal to both genders: lots of action, fighting and tech for the boys, and relationship developments and character building for the girls. Well, I'm obviously stereotyping here and should probably get shouted at for that last sentence, but the point is that the writing on Firefly was very rounded, appealing, I would have thought, to fans of drama, romance and mystery as well as to fans of SF.

Firefly was yet another cult series commissioned and cancelled by Fox after their usual genius fashion, getting us hooked on something, then whipping it out from under us, leaving us bereft. Produced and co-written by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel), Firefly has his familiar deft touch in drama and humour. The story is simple: there is no huge quest, the main protagonists are not extraordinary people, and there is no major political issue. Ex-soldier Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is the captain of the Firefly class cargo ship Serenity, trying to eke out a living in a post-war galaxy. He and his first officer, Zoe Washburn (Gina Torres) fought, on the losing side, for independence against the unifying force of the Alliance, but, whereas other writers might have depicted them waging a resistance war against the Alliance and trying to overthrow them, Whedon has resisted this temptation, and instead tells an everyday story of simple trading folk. This doesn't mean that there's no action; far from it: it's simply not possible to earn a big enough profit to keep a Firefly trader flying by purely legal methods; which, of course, means getting involved with smuggling and the dodgy characters associated therewith.

The clever bit in Firefly is in the mixing of past and future to make a plausible "now" for the purposes of the story. A lot of the worlds Serenity carries her wares to are frontier colonies, with Western-style clapboard houses and mud streets, and there are broad brimmed hats, low slung shooters, horses and carts as the main form of transport, and a general absence of law. This is mixed with run-down privately owned trader spaceships, shiny hi-tec Alliance spaceships, directed energy weapons that look like six-shooters and interplanetary communications. It's neither Mad Max dystopia nor Star Trek hi-tec shiny utopia, but a more realistic-feeling something-in-between.

The ship Serenity, herself, has a well used, patched up look, and is a major character in the series. Every deck was built in full on the lot, so that following shots can run from the bridge to the cargo bay. According to the cast, it became a very real place for them. A lot of what the crew do is motivated by keeping the ship up and running, so that she, in turn, can be used to earn them a living. Sometimes the crew are living on survival rations, because buying parts for the ship takes priority over having fancy food to eat. After a profitable bit of trading, the crew can be seen chowing down on fresh fruit and vegetables, luxuriating in the extravagance of it - it's obviously a rare treat.

The ship is well loved, and it is home to the crew of nine, as well as a means of transport and trade. There is a scene showing Mal Reynolds falling in love with the Firefly at first sight, obviously seeing its potential over the other vessels on offer. He calls her Serenity after the battle of Serenity Valley, which saw the end of the Independents' resistance to the Alliance, and in which all but one of his squad were killed. And that was a huge squad, as officers above him were killed, their units came under the then Sgt Reynolds' command. He was hugely admired as a commander, but could do nothing against the superior numbers and technology of the Alliance: the pain of all those casualties forged his character as an indomitable adversary, and protector of his crew. Whatever threat is made against his crew or his ship, Reynolds never gives up until they are safe again, and this portrayal makes him a tremendously strong character in the series. Why does he do it? "My crew, my ship. MY. CREW." is his answer, and you never doubt him for a moment.

The other person in love with Serenity is her engineer, a young woman called Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite). Although without any formal training, she has a natural affinity for engines and engineering, and keeps Serenity flying through intuition and innovation. Often having to make do with what's available, she jury-rigs systems to keep everything going, so puts her heart and soul into the ship and won't have a word said against her. Kaylee is the cohesive force in the crew, balancing the authority figure of Reynolds: she always sees the best in everyone and in every situation, and is the first to comfort crew-mates in distress, or to try to resolve conflict between them. Consequently, she can get very hurt if anyone says anything to denigrate her (or Serenity). Staite is well cast for this character, having an open, friendly face, quick to smile, and is very convincing as this likeable girl. She puts in a tremendous performance, and you immediately warm to her - I mean immediately, as in: within the first half hour of the first show; so you are very shocked and dismayed when she is shot and critically injured. The way the character has chalked her name hippie-style, surrounded by flowers, on the door of her quarters says so muh about her immediately. It's a very clever device, not only adding to the characterisation, but the contrast between the coloured chalk and the grey metallic door it adorns also says so much about the crews' lives, making the best of what they've got, and making what they've got all theirs.

Some clever techniques are used to make you feel in the "now" of the show. One of these is language and culture. The premise of the society at this future time is that two dominant cultures pushed out into space: Eastern/Chinese, and Western/American, so everyone speaks Mandarin as well as English. The crew will often drop into Mandarin, particularly to vent anger at, or frustration with, another character or the situation. The cast had to learn how to pronounce the Mandarin lines properly, so the feeling of it being real is maintained. Most of the lines said in Mandarin are ones that it wouldn't matter if the viewer didn't understand, and it also gave them a way of getting a few choice obscenities past the censors. English is spoken with a convincing idiomatic combination of cowboy and neologisms. Sentence structure and phraseology is archaic, with some words being assigned new meanings, such as "shiny" being used to mean "great", "fine" or "excellent". For example:
MAL: "Problem?"
KAYLEE: "Nope. No. Everythings shiny."
The slang isn't so dense that you can't make sense of it, but it's different enough from modern English to convince you that you're in a different time.

Novel or uncommon production techniques are also used. At a time before it became de rigeur in such US dramas, single hand-held cameras are used almost throughout. Some of the focusing and framing is deliberately sloppy and amateurish, to make you feel like you are there, looking from person to person, and not absolutely catching every movement or facial expression. You might see someone's expression start to change, just as the camera sweeps away to look at someone else: you don't see the full expression, but you get enough of a glimpse to know what they're thinking. These techniques are even carried over into the CGI shots: you might be looking at a spaceship running at speed in the atmosphere, but it's like an amateur operator trying to follow a Formula 1 car with a pocket video camera - it never quite gets centred, and focus is lost and regained, while the camera zooms in during the shot, as if in an attempt to get detail, but then zooms back out again as if the camera operator has realised that framing and focus would be too hard to maintain at those zoom levels.

I picked up the box set of Firefly after having seen the feature film Serenity when it was aired recently. The programme guide that said it was based on a TV series called Firefly, which has never been on free-to-air TV, only on Sky, so I'd never heard of it. When I saw the reviews on Amazon, and that it was only £12.95-ish for the series, I decided to get it on the off chance. I loved it, as you can see, and like all the other fans who bought the box set, cannot for the life of me fathom why they cancelled it. There were a lot of threads that had been introduced in what should have only been the first series, that never got resolved. Some were tied up in the feature film, but there are so many open stories, many about characters I've not even mentioned in this review, it should have gone on for at least three seasons. Exactly what did the Alliance do to River Tam to turn her into a both a nervous, emotional wreck and a killing machine? Will Kaylee ever get to be with River's brother, Dr. Simon Tam? Will he-man Jayne Cobb ever get over having a girl's name? Who are the men in blue rubber gloves? And will Inara, a professional courtesan and Companion, ever admit her love for Mal Reynolds? If the TV series is ever picked up again and continued, will they go with the consequences of the events in the feature film, or will they rewind to the end of the first series? These questions and many more will probably never be answered; and I'll say no more, because that would spoil things if you want to watch these yourself.

Graeme's gift to his friends

Last Saturday (21^st May) was a day that Denise and I will always remember. Our good friend Graeme celebrated his 60^th birthday and a life in music by inviting family and a large number of friends - among whom, I am very pleased to say, we are included - to a music festival a hotel near his home in Fife.

There were 10 acts, starting at about 1.30 in the afternoon with Graeme’s daughter performing with R&B/Funk/Blues band Lights Out By Nine. Sad to say we arrived too late to see that one-and-only performance, as Siobhan only did this gig as a tribute to her dear old dad, being more interested in the technical aspects of stage work than performing live.

This was quickly followed by Jane Taylor and Friends. Jane is a good friend of Graeme's family, and a - now well established - folk and country recording artist, having appeared at a load of festivals, including Glastonbury. She has two albums under her belt: we have a copy of the very excellent Compass, which we bought when she appeared at one of Graeme’s Live at the Musistadl living room recordings. We arrived too late to see Jane this time, unfortunately, but, having seen her at Graeme’s before, we were not too disappointed. I don’t usually listen to folk or country music, but live music is always worth hearing, and Jane has a wonderful voice that just has to be listened to.

I just have to mention the setup at this point. The “stage” was really a performance area at one end of the hotel’s function room, but it was fully rigged with a professional PA and mixing desk, and had to be changed between acts. This was professionally and rapidly done in about a tenth the time it takes in purpose built venues, using no less gear and cabling. The only thing that remained on stage throughout the event was a drum-kit and one of the guitar amps. I was very impressed that they managed to turn around 10 acts, incorporating 52 musicians according to Graeme’s head-count, between 1.30 and 11.45; and the longest interval was 15 minutes!

We arrived about half way through the set of the next act. As we arrived, we heard this heavy sounding rock band playing, and thought, OK, so it’s not all going to be folk and country – we’ve got a proper rock band on now. Wonder who they are? As we got a drink we could hear, but not see them, and they were hammering out a tight set of rock, punk and indie numbers. The rhythm section was driving the band on, and the lead guitarist really seemed to know their stuff. The band was fronted by a girl singer, but her voice, while very powerful, sounded odd – a little, y’know, right at the top of the high register? Anyway, we got served and finally manoeuvred into a position where we could see the performance area and were faced with … (dan! dan! daaahh!)  a bunch of eleven-year-olds! Our jaws hit the floor, and we looked at each other and just grinned. We’d just seen the future of future of rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s called Loud ‘n’ Proud, a bunch of schoolkids who have been playing together for about 2 years, but who sound as good together as (insert name of a long-established band that isn’t a shambles here). They exuded energy and enthusiasm, tempered with technical excellence and a real stage presence. That little girl fronting the band did everything she should have been doing as the one at the front. She was engaging with the audience, introducing each number with confidence and humour, fading into the back-ground for the soloists’ bits, and generally just owning that stage. If they stay together they are going to be soooo biiigggg!

Next came a folk trio from Devon (they came all the way up for this gig!) called Alan West & Steve Black. Spot the mistake, there? The third guy was the bassist, so he obviously doesn’t count. My bruv Simon (“The Bassist”, a.k.a. “the heart of the band”) should be getting very angry right now. Good act, great songs, and a lot of silly banter and bickering between numbers.

We were told, in our invitations, that the idea of the day was that the guests could come and go, take a break, have a nap and come back later. Is he kidding? We couldn’t tear ourselves away!!

The fifth act (and we are counting) was Dave Arcari. Dave is tall, with very dark short hair and a very dark long narrow beard, going grey at the end. He was wearing a faux cowboy Ramones shirt (black with white detailing and pocket flaps), a pair of black jeans, and a pair of very scruffy black Doc Martin’s. He was holding a very shiny chrome National Steel guitar, but he had a spare black one on a stand behind him. Got the picture? We’re talking monochrome here. Now, describing the man was quite easy, but describing his act is more … problematic. He’s definitely an after-the-watershed act normally, but manfully toned it down for the mixed audience. Imagine a cross between Pete Townsend (windmilling arms, running around the stage), Sid Vicious (crouching over the microphone, rolling his eyes up in his head) and Johnny Cash (the man in black). Now imagine him playing delta-blues slide guitar (remember the National Steel?) in the style described above, covering numbers by Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf numbers et. al., all in double time, in a roaring, growling voice. Close your eyes, though, and there was a lot of control and skill in the guitar playing, especially given his on-stage gyrations. Definitely a … unique act, and a grin a minute.

So the sixth act was a large outfit called Big River. They did Johnny Cash numbers in their own style. Not being a lover of the man (speak it softly), I didn’t know any of the songs apart from one or two. They were very good at what they did, but this was really the only act of the day that didn’t grab me, and that’s not bad, considering how many acts there were, and how many different styles of music there were. Graeme crafted the festival in such a way that there’d be something for everyone, so it’s no surprise that there was something that wasn’t my cup of tea: I was delighted that it turned out just to be the one act.

The seventh act were a very local act called The Complainers from Charlestown, where the hotel was. The name says it all: they did a couple covers of Proclaimers songs, plus a number of anthems and duos (a la Everly Brothers) and were great fun. The drummer was definitely in charge, pulling them up at the start of one number when the keyboard came in on the wrong count. It was all good natured and very enjoyable. Actually, this counting-in error was really the only noticeable blong all day, and the quality of the performances was of the very highest level, professionals and non-professionals alike.

Number eight now (this is starting so read like a Desert Island Discs script), and my highlight of the day, Cousti. Don’t ask me where the name comes from: try looking on the band’s website www.cousti.com. The musical style is definitely Americana Folk-Rock, with close harmonies and nice acoustic and electric guitar riffs (think, Eagles). Oh, I just noticed, “Cousti” is a bit like “acoustic” isn’t it? I wonder if that’s it? Anyway, their website also has some samples from their albums to give you an idea of the sound, which is so polished on stage as to be indistinguishable from a studio set. The nearest British band I can think of is Stackridge, but more American and less whimsical than them, but the sound is quite similar in some ways. I just sank into the rich, velvety, intertwining strings sound and was well away.

Old favourite of ours, singer-songwriter Alex Cornish and his band, was next up. He was one of Jane Taylor’s “& Friends” earlier in the day, so he was having a long wait for a drink. He’s another one who has appeared at the Musistadl on his own and with Jane Taylor, and his album Until The Traffic Stops is one that can, and should, be listened to again and again. He is a highly accomplished acoustic guitarist, and his intricate pick-work adds so much atmosphere and texture to his lyrics. His unique style was very much appreciated by the audience, who wouldn’t let him off without an encore. I like Alex’s music very much, and was glad to hear him live again, this time with his excellent band (he was solo at Graeme’s Living Room Recordings sessions). His new album No Shore is out on June 13^th.

The final spot of the night saw the return of Lights Out By Nine, on their own ticket this time. I’ve seen them elsewhere, providing the entertainment at a corporate Christmas party, on what, it has to be said, was a much larger stage. On that occasion, everybody was up and dancing, including me! This is a very polished band, and a great finale to the day. I love a band with a horn section, just pinning everything down, and pinning back your lug’oles. We were sitting right the front, so didn’t really need the PA to get the full force of the sax, trumpet and trombone. There are LOTS of YouTube clips of this band, some better than others, and they’ve been recording for a few years now, so it’d be easy to find out what they sound like. They really are a good old fashioned jumping, bopping, funkin’ R&B band. I thought at one point they were going to go into a Average White Band number, so you can see why they were a perfect fit to support AWB on tour this year.

Denise's first standard-distance Triathlon

Picture of my stopwatch, showing Denise's finishing time for her first ever standard-distance triathlon - all of the others so far have been Sprint Distance. In the Standard, the swim is 1500 M, the cycle is 40 km, and the run is 10 km: so each distance is twice what she's used to doing!

At the end, she didn't seem, to me, to be much more shattered than after her normal sprint events; and her time was within what she'd said beforehand that she'd be satisfied with.

I'm hugely proud of te way she stepped up to the greater distances; and she was justifiably pleased with herself and looking forward to the next one.