Into the Archive: Pennies from Heaven

 

“With a 100-year storm threatening the southern California coast, Jane Larkin is approached by a strange, audacious woman who wants to invest much-needed money in Jane’s Old Orange Co-op. Meanwhile Jane’s husband Jerry discovers an ancient excavation beneath the Larkin home. On that ominous morning in autumn, shadows descend over the deceptively quiet neighborhoods of Old Orange, ushering in a flood of chaos, terror, and murder.” - Amazon. Dec. 1, 2022. 304 Pages.

Although this book had been out since last year, I only became aware of it on September 14^th. Then on the 28^th I was able to order it, and now it has arrived on the 30^th, in the late afternoon. I can’t begin reading it just yet as I am still tucked into Tolkien’s Faith, but I am feeling reassured now that it is waiting in the wings. I was a little uneasy that it was referred to as a trade ‘paperback’, but it is a very tough cover with French folds (gatefold cover style). The publishing company is Drugstore Indian Press, a division of PS Publishing, ‘the UK​​​​​​​'s foremost specialist genre publisher of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction from the finest exponents of their craft.’

A Time to Pause and Reflect

 

Being unable to download any photos today because of phone usage issues, I went back and counted how may action figures I have posted to date. I came up with an estimated (I say estimated because countin' and calculatin' has never been my strong suit) 1050 figures. Allowing for a soft valuation of $10 a pop (keeping in mind lower older costs, gifts, and garage sale discounts), that comes to $10,500 over the years (or $10, 640 if you give the Balrog his full cost). And I'm not even close to being finished, a fact which both elates and depresses me, and fills me with a small measure of guilt. On the other hand, if I had spent that money on more practical measures like meals or clothes, those things would be long gone, whereas I still have the toys! And if I had kept the money, what would its buying power be in this economy?

Out of the Toybox (43): Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Jan. 1993 to June 1999) action figures. After a while I accepted it as a pretty good successor to TNG; guests from TNG would appear so you could see what they were up to, and Michael Dorn actually joined up as Worf again in later seasons. The last season did kind of degenerate into a sort of mystical Stephen R. Donaldson transfusion, what with the Pah-Wraiths storyline and all.

The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part One)

 

The Tale

          ‘Gollum moved quickly, with his head and neck thrust forward, often using his hands as well as his feet.’ It’s hard for Frodo and Sam to keep up, but Gollum isn’t trying to escape anymore. He actually stops and waits for them. He takes them to a gully they passed by before, but here it’s a little lower, only about fifteen feet down. Gollum found it once when he was fleeing from Orcs.

He finds a way and leads them down. There is running water at the bottom, a little river flowing from the hills. He takes them southward, delighted to be splashing along the stony spring. He begins to croak a creepy little song, about how ‘The cold hard lands/ they bites our hands,/ they gnaws our feet.’ It turns into a tune praising water, and then into a riddle about fish. Baggins guessed it, long ago. ‘We only wish/ to catch a fish,/ so juicy-sweet!’

That only accentuates a worry Sam has been having: what will Gollum eat? He looks none too well-fed, and likely to try hobbit if he can’t find fish. But he won’t find Sam Gamgee napping.

They stumble tiredly along the gully for what seems a long time to the weary hobbits. The gully turned eastward and got shallower as they go. Finally, the sun starts to rise, and Gollum calls a halt. He won’t travel under its light, and they must hide. ‘Orcs and nasty things are about. They can see a long way.’

They settle down to camp on one of the large flat stones at the bottom of the gully, while Gollum scrabbles around in the stream. Frodo tells Gollum that he and Sam are going to eat a little. They don’t have much but they will share with him. ‘What is it they eats? Have they nice fishes?’

No, not fish, but he holds out some lembas. ‘Is it crunchable? Is it tasty?’ Gollum takes the wafer, showing disgust for the leaf wrapper; to him it stinks. But he breaks off a little corner of the bread and nibbles it.

Gollum spits it out and starts coughing at the taste. ‘Dust and ashes, he can’t eat that!’ Poor Smeagol must starve as he guides the hobbits as he promised. Frodo says the lembas would do him good if he tried, but perhaps in the condition he is in Gollum can’t even try yet.

The hobbits munch their lembas in silence; Sam thinks it tastes better than ever, somehow. ‘Gollum watched every morsel from hand to mouth, like an expectant dog by a diner’s chair.’ When the meal is over, he sits down a little way off and whimpers. Sam lowers his voice and tells Frodo they need to sleep a bit, but not both at the same time. Frodo tells him openly he thinks that there is no danger at the moment. Smeagol has changed, but how deep there is no telling. Sam can watch if he wishes while Frodo sleeps, but he must wake him up for his turn after two hours. He falls asleep almost instantly.

Gollum curls up and falls asleep as well, breath hissing softly through his clenched teeth. After a while Sam gets up and gently prods the sleeping creature. Sam whisper fissh into his ear, and when Gollum doesn’t even flinch, concludes that he must really be asleep. ‘And if I was like Gollum, he wouldn’t wake up never again.’

‘He restrained the thoughts of his sword and the rope that sprang to his mind, and went and sat down by his master.’

Bits and Bobs

There is an excellent recording of Tolkien reading Gollum’s little song in a hissing, creaking voice. The song is the extension of a riddle that Gollum told Bilbo in The Hobbit. There is a glint of malice in Gollum’s eyes as he recalls 'Baggins' and his losing of the Ring.

Gollum’s disgust with all things Elvish is further accentuated when he gives lembas a try. His long servitude to the evil of the Ring has left him no taste for anything as concentratedly wholesome, even spiritually nourishing, as the Elven-bread. Frodo thinks and hopes that if Gollum could ever bring himself to partake of it, it would help him, both physically and internally. But he perhaps is not ready to even want such a thing.

Gollum’s dog-like characteristics and his sufferings are once more alluded to, evoking our pity, if not Sam’s just yet. Sam instead has (suppressed) thoughts about murdering him. It is an understandable impulse, if uncharitable, and Sam is probably rational in his desire. However, it is his better nature that prevails, another step that leads to the eventual success of the quest.

Expresses My Feelings about the State of Star Trek Today

 

Chris Farley : Mr. Martin, before I go, I was wondering ... I found this in wardrobe and I was wondering if you could sign it.

Steve Martin : My old King Tut costume! I remember this. This was back when the show … meant something.

Saturday Night Live, Dec 14, 1991

Out of the Toybox (42): The Next Generation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation began in 1987 and ended in 1994, a total of seven seasons, and could be said to be prolonged through the four ST:TNG movies that went from 1994 until 2002, and which arose again like some unclean ghola in the series Picard, which began in 2020.

The first ST:TNG action figures were produced by Galoob in 1988 and did not fare well, perhaps because the series had not quite yet hit its stride. But in 1992, when Playmates finally began producing their own line of action figures (and ships, and playsets), they took off like a, well, like a rocket. We scoured local stores in an effort to get each release; and for a long time ‘pips and piping’ (variations on the uniforms) was to be a bedeviling phrase.

I remember once I decided to buy a Geordi LaForge in Dress Uniform instead of a Thomas Riker (a transporter clone of William Riker), and have regretted the decision for years, as Thomas became a rare find. John and I believe he was snapped up by ‘the White Whale’, a heavyset, white-bearded man who seemed to shadow our every toy quest and whom I suspect bought toys to – gasp! – resell and invest.

Anyway, there had been opportunities for many variations over the years, from young characters in the Academy to holodeck costumes to aged alternate timeline characters in the series finale. Geordie figures tend to lose their VISORs, but I keep those safe in a box. I suppose there are so many Worfs because he went on to feature in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Excelsior!

Out of the Toybox (41): The Old Gang

 

More figures of the Old Crew, as they appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and in the 1994 movie Star Trek: Generations. The figure in the silvery suit is Kirk in his suborbital skydiving gear. My God, that was almost thirty years ago! Nearly half my life. And now William Shatner has actually flown into space in a suborbital capsule in 2021, at the age of 90, the oldest person to have ever done so. I didn’t see that one coming.

Out of the Toybox (40): The One and Only, Genuine, Original Star Trek Band

 

Star Trek: The Original Series (as it came to be called) was of course OUR Star Trek, though we caught it on the rebound, as it were, during the reruns in 1974, the first time it was shown in syndication in our area, I think. I believe its concentrated availability (five times a week) accounted for its explosion this time around. Soon we were buying Star Trek MEGOs, Star Trek books, and even toy phasers that lit up and whistled – scientifically! Star Trek occupied many of our imaginary adventures, and in the ‘real life’ versions Mike always appropriated the coveted persona of Mr. Spock, which was ironic because technically the Vulcan was the second banana to Captain Kirk, though superior as a character. I understand William Shatner had troubles with that, too.

I was very happy when Playmates began producing Original Series figures as well as their Next Generation line, starting in 1993 with a Bridge Set featuring the Big Seven of the Original Crew. That spread out to individual characters, sets of characters from episodes, and figures from the movies featuring the original cast. The line from The Next Generation (which takes place 95 years after the Original Series) already had ‘old’ characters from TOS that had visited the show: an ancient McCoy, who had been on the pilot; Scotty, who was featured as rescued from a transporter beam in one episode; and Spock, who as a Vulcan was naturally long-lived, in the two-parter Reunification. I’ll come to them later. 

Thrand (Part Eight)

 

Thrand was taken in hand by a brisk young page and guided somewhat breathlessly through the back chambers of the palace. The old Morg trotted behind as the hallways grew less and less spacious and went from ornate to plain. Occasionally his belly growled as he passed halls that billowed and steamed with smells of cooking. At last he found himself kicked out of a small door (courteously of course, if rather hastily – it was going to be a busy day, after all) that led into the shady aisles of the castle gardens. The door itself was camouflaged outside by tall hedges, and as Thrand kinked his way around them he could already feel the heat of the day starting to overwhelm the cool of the morning.

After threading his way through the garden he was let out the back gate by the guard there with very little fuss. Maybe the guard recognized Thrand and maybe not. He gave no indication. Perhaps he just reckoned that no-one would try to break his way out of the palace, Thrand thought wryly. The gate swung shut behind him.

The High Justice looked up and down the street, tugging on his beard thoughtfully. This area seemed to be dedicated to rather fancy shops, places most likely to be frequented by habitues of the White Tower or people who thought that the proximity guaranteed some sort of quality or tone.  The Inner Circle road wasn’t far away; if he meant to begin taking Madam Melniar’s advice, there was no time like the present. The day would only get hotter and the trek more uncomfortable. Rather reluctantly, he began making his way forward.

It wasn’t just the idea of the exercise that was slowing him down. Thrand was still wearing his judge’s robes, and it would be a short leap from spotting those to identifying him as the High Justice himself, and before he knew it that information would be passed along and sold, and he would be mobbed by a throng of postulants who just couldn’t wait to be king. That sort of thing had happened to him before.  Right now, he just wanted a little time to think about things as he trudged along.

The solution came to him by accident. Almost the first place he passed was a clothing store outfitted with a fringed red awning. A large banner, obviously brand-new, had been pinned to the tassels: MOURNING CLOAKS/BLACK & WHITE. Grinning grimly to himself, he glanced left and right before going in.

A young clerk behind the desk looked up in surprise from his books as Thrand entered. The man was plainly not quite ready for business yet, but he was also apparently not going to let a sale go by. He switched smoothly into an obsequious mode as he slipped out onto the shop floor, tilting his head into a sort of permanent half-bow.

“Ah, my lord. And what can we supply you with on this somber day? The master of the shop himself is otherwise engaged at the moment, but perhaps I could help you?”

“Perhaps you can,” Thrand said gruffly. He looked around the store. It was obvious that much of its usual stock had been hurriedly pushed back to the walls to make room for racks upon racks of cloaks of all lengths. “I need to buy a mourning cloak.”

“But of course. As you can see, we have many sizes, in the traditional colors for both Men and Morgs. They range in quality from quite decently basic to most substantial.  You will, of course, wish a black one.”

“I do.” Thrand turned and fingered a nearby cloak. “You seem to have got things out pretty quickly, considering the King only died this morning.”

The clerk shook his head as he measured up his customer’s height.

“Alas, the passing of the lamented King Taryn was an event not entirely unforeseen. The master has been preparing for that melancholy eventuality for weeks, the better to serve our customers in their time of need. You are a Husky Medium,” he concluded briskly. “What sort of quality are you seeking, sir?”

“Oh, pretty basic, I think.” The young man’s face froze a bit, not exactly in disapproval, but a shade less enthusiastic. “I’ve got a fancier one at home,” Thrand hastened to add. “I just don’t want to be caught disrespecting the King on the streets right now.”

“I see.” The man sniffed slightly. “We also offer a cleaning service, should you find the need of one for your … old cloak, if it has gone unused for some time.” He riffled through the racks and came up with a plain cloak and hood. He briefly measured it against the old Morg. “This seems correct. I take it you will wear it out?”

They moved over to the counter and completed the transaction in an abrupt, businesslike manner. Before Thrand left the shop, throwing the cloak around his shoulders and pulling the hood up, a figure had emerged from the shadowy recesses of the door at the back of the store to watch him leave, a gingery-bearded Morg of middle age, very well dressed. He hastened out to the clerk after Thrand had left.

“Here, Sharro, how much did that fellow pay?”

“Just one silver mark.” He shrugged. “Cheapskate.”

The Morg slapped him on the side of his head.

“Dolt! Didn’t you realize that he was a Judge?”

The clerk rubbed his head.

“Really?”

“Really.” The master sighed, shaking his head mournfully. He stared at the empty doorway. “We could have soaked him for five marks, easy.”

Out of the Toybox (39): Our Seventies MEGOs

 

Here are our Seventies Star Trek and Planet of the Apes MEGOs from the Ape Box, recently restored by John with what he could find in the remains. We had a Scotty too, but not enough was left to make a full figure. The second line of Apes are clothed with whatever was on hand. Oh, the epic tales these figures might tell if only they could talk!

Out of the Toybox (38): Tall Orders

Star Trek: First Contact (Playmates; 1996)

Enterprise (Art Asylum; 2002), Nemesis (Art Asylum; 2002), and Star Trek Original Spock (2009 movie; Playmates).

Interesting fact: behind all that makeup the Reman viceroy in Nemesis was our old friend, Ron Perlman.

I don't think that the Cardassian in the First Contact group belongs to it; he's just in a similar scale. All of these figures are in a bigger scale than the plethora of Star Trek Playmates that are to come.

The Lord of the Rings: The Taming of Smeagol (Part Five and Last)

 

The Tale

They all three sit against the stony wall, Gollum between Frodo and Sam, and wait for the moon to set. Gollum is very tense, eyes closed, as if waiting for something. The hobbits exchange an understanding look, and then pretend to fall asleep.

Gollum cautiously opens one eye, and then the other, then slowly looks from one to the other hobbit. Then with a sudden leap ‘like a grasshopper or a frog’ he goes bounding forward into the darkness.

But this is what the hobbits have been waiting for. Sam jumps up and grabs him, and Frodo grabs Gollum’s leg and brings him down. Frodo suggests some of Sam’s rope might be useful again, and Sam gets it out. Sam growls at Gollum, accusing the treacherous creature of going to find some of his orc-friends. ‘It’s round your neck this rope ought to go, and a tight noose, too.’ Gollum lays quiet but gives Sam ‘a swift venomous look.’

Frodo suggests tying one leg (they need him to walk) but when the noose goes on Gollum starts to scream, ‘a thin tearing sound’, and will not stop. Frodo determines that he is in pain, but it can’t be from the knot. It is hardly tight enough, in fact. ‘Sam was gentler than his words.’ He asks Gollum what is the matter.

‘It freezes, it bites!’ Gollum hisses. ‘Elves twisted it, curse them! Nasty cruel hobbits! That’s why we tries to escape, of course it is, precious … Take it off us! It hurts us!’ Frodo says they cannot take it off, not unless there is any promise that Gollum can give them that he won’t run away that Frodo can trust.

Gollum desperately agrees to swear to anything, then suddenly and clearly and in a strange voice declares ‘Smeagol will swear on the Precious.’

Frodo draws himself up sternly. ‘On the Precious? How dare you?’ It is an evil thing: it will hold Gollum to his promise, ‘[but] it is more treacherous than you are. It may twist your words.’ And what would he swear?

‘To be very very good.’ Gollum grovels and he shakes with fear. ‘Smeagol will swear never, never to let Him have it. Never! Smeagol will save it. But he must swear on the Precious.’

Frodo looks down on him with stern pity. No, not on it. Gollum just wants to see it and touch it again, even though it would drive him mad. He can swear by it. Because it is indeed before him. To Sam it seems that Frodo is suddenly some lordly figure standing before a whining dog at his feet, but Gollum and Frodo are still somehow akin: ‘they could still reach one another’s minds.’ Gollum raises himself and begins pawing and fawning at his knees.

‘Down! Down!’ said Frodo. ‘Now speak your promise!’

‘We promises, yes, I promise!’ said Gollum ‘I will serve the master of the Precious. Good master, good Smeagol, gollum, gollum!’ He begins to weep and bite at his ankle where the rope ties him. Satisfied, Frodo orders Sam to take off the rope.

Gollum gets up and starts ‘prancing around, like a whipped cur whose master has patted it.’ After this he changes for a good while, and becomes fawning and eager to please, talking to the Hobbits directly and not just to himself, hissing and whining less. He still cringes away from the touch of their Elven cloaks, or indeed anything Elvish. Sam still distrusts him, ‘and if possible liked the new Gollum, the Smeagol, less than the old.’ He remarks that the Moon has gone down and that they should be on their way.

Gollum agrees. There is only one way across the North-end and the South-end, and Orcs don’t know it. They don’t cross the Marshes. Only Smeagol found it long ago; they are very lucky they found him! He takes a few steps ahead and looks back, ‘like a dog inviting them for a walk.’ Sam tells him not to get too far ahead, but Gollum assures him, ‘Smeagol promised.’

‘In the deep night under hard clear stars they set off. Gollum led them back northward for a while along the way they had come; then he slanted to the right away from the steep edge of the Emyn Muil, down the broken stony slopes towards the vast fens below. They faded swiftly and softly into the darkness. Over all the leagues of waste before the gates of Mordor there was a black silence.’

Bits and Bobs

Before his ‘taming’ Gollum is again likened to an insect or a frog; afterwards, he becomes more like a dog, still ‘lower’ but approachable and less repellant, his personhood closer to our sympathies.  Indeed he becomes less ‘Gollum’ and more ‘Smeagol’, the hobbit he used to be before the Ring shattered his identity into fragments.

Through his long contact with the evil of the Ring, Gollum has contracted an aversion to all things Elvish, to items that have been imbued with their spiritual power, with the powers of light and good that oppose Sauron. The irony is that you could try to reward him with the most paradisal delights on Middle-earth and he would feel only the worst infernal pains. In Goethe’s Faust, the roses of mercy that fall from Heaven are like flames to the damned; in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters ‘what is blind, suffocating fire to [the demon] is now cool light to [the saved soul], is clarity itself.’

The ‘promise’ of Smeagol is interesting in its ambiguity. The only clear article is that he will never let ‘Him’ have the Ring. Sauron is still the clear main rival to the Precious in Gollum’s mind; he was never going to let the Dark Lord get it in any case, if he could help it.  He swears he will save the Ring and to serve the master of the Precious, rather ambiguous terms that allow his divided mind to accept the oath. I always felt the oddity of Frodo’s phrasing of the situation in the Jackson movies; it sounded as if he were saying that because the Ring is treacherous it would hold Gollum to his words.

Out of the Toybox (37): Star Trek: the Motion Picture

 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (MEGO; 1979) Starting Star Trek action figures today; this might take a while. Of course, we had some of the 8-inch MEGOs back in the day (and John's done a nice job restoring them). But the next set we had were these 3 3/4-inch MEGOs from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). A lot of age on these. Somewhere along the way Kirk's feet got chewed almost off (dog? child?). I know we have the McCoy. It seems to have been shuffled into the wrong bin somewhere along the way. It will probably turn up sometime in the process. I'm afraid Ilia's paint has worn off in a rather suggestive way.

Update: Found! McCoy gets his close-up. I have the feeling DeForest Kelley would be pleased.

Out of the Toybox (36): See You in the Funny Papers

 

Characters from DC Comics and Marvel. I mostly read Thor, Conan, and Man-Thing (where I was introduced to Howard the Duck) back in the day, which were all from Marvel. I really only got into DC with the animated series. Swamp Thing (Kenner, 1990) figures are odd, since they don't seem based either on the comics or the movies. I have The Transducer and the Swamp Trap from that series. I know I have that zombie's arm somewhere in the files.