Mr g Rides Space Mountain!

It came to me this morning as I was taking a shower. I've mentioned a few times here how you could do worse that consider Star Trek: Voyager a science fiction retelling of Homer's Odyssey – both the series and the poem have a ship stranded far from home, both the series and the poem have their crews encounter various and not always friendly creatures, both the series and the poem take a span of years (Voyager takes seven, Odyssey takes ten), and while it's not a straight line-by-line comparison (though I am inclined now to parallel Voyager's Hirogen with Odyssey's Lotus-Eaters, and the Kazon with the Cyclops) it may make the one you the reader find hard to relate to or make sense of more palatable by comparing it to the other.

A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. (saying of the Buddha)

Now for the prepared-to-stay-put crowd: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction retelling of Homer's Iliad. Again, this is not a line-by-line comparison but consider that both the series and the poem are (mostly) in a stationary location. Commander – later Captain – Sisko I thought was the match to the Greek commander Agamemnon, but with the main conflict of the series, as much as you can boil it down, between Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat (parallel with Achilles and Hector in the Iliad), I would give the commander's laurels to Major Kira who's technically second-in-command but has the home court advantage, DS9 having been in orbit of Bajor and its proximity to the wormhole making Bajor one of the must-see sites of the Alpha Quadrant. And the Dominion are the city of Troy.

We have built the heaven with might, and We it is who make the vast extent. (Qu'ran 51:47)

Ok, I think I've digressed enough for the day. (But really, let's sit down and hash this out over a cup of coffee and scones sometime, or even half-dead gahk! No wait, there's nothing worse than half-dead gahk.) Got home last night with the kids and fixed them burgers and fries and we all settled in for a long winter's nap. With winter ending on the calendar in (now) nine days and only forty days to Easter, after rocking out to some music on Pandora via Martha's iPad – and make no mistake, it's HER iPad and we only are allowed to even look at it by her grace – we prayed in varying states of calm and I brought the youths up to bed. Then Martha got home, and I encouraged her after eating something to not play or check or stroll too long on the Pad before coming to bed. I was nice about it! I think.

The senses are higher than the body; the mind higher than the senses; above the mind is the intellect; and above the intellect is the Self. (Bhagavad Gita 3:42)

“As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe.” So begins Alan Lightman's 2012 novel Mr g, a fictional first-person account of the being who will become God (He's never called That in the story, ISBN 9780307379993) starting from the Void and creating, actually, many universes. But He settles His focus on the particular one designated Aalam-104729, establishing its physical laws and through those laws gradually life develops and suffering occurs on so many worlds. You get the impression that Mr g's non-interference is a challenge presented to him by Belhor, the devil-surrogate in this story which takes us to universe's end. Mr g knows the next universe He creates will be different, and His Uncle Deva and Aunt Penelope refuse to rush Him.

What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

The last foray I remember Disney making into time travel was the live-action movie Flight of the Navigator in the 1980s (by the way, check out the “80s Awareness” two-minute video narrated by Kevin Bacon now on YouTube, it is chocolate-milk-spurt-out-your-nose-funny!) and in its first graphic novel, the House of Mouse with Space Mountain, ISBN 9781423162292, uses one of its most popular if not outright scary attractions – I've ridden Space Mountain as a kid, you will scream but don't you dare stand up! – as the focal point for early twenty-second century time travel. Two space cadets get to accompany seasoned explorers on a mission twenty-four hours into the future, and of course something goes wrong, there's a cute robot sidekick, and so much happens!

I'm amazed one story held it all, but don't they all?

 

 

 

David