Street Jazz

Land of the Lost - we waited this long for this?

This past Monday, the Sci Fi Channel ran a day long marathon of Land of the Lost episodes, of which I caught a couple. LOTL was never in the Star Trek class, being a Saturday morning show for kids, but it had a certain charm to it.

It had strong characters,  and it had major science fiction writers, such as Norman Spinrad and Larry Niven, writing for the series, in addition to a few who had written for the original Star Trek.

Yeah, the special effects were cheesy, but science fiction fans are forgiving of that sort of thing,  if the audience is treated with respect. Given the target audience, and the fact that the producers knew some adults were watching, the series holds up pretty well. The series has long held an affectionate place in people’s memories.

And it being the 1970s, we didn’t really have a whole lot of SF on TV at the time.

Fans have hoped for a Land of the Lost movie for a long-time - big budget, but remaining true to the characters, and the background of the show.

And so we get Will Ferrell.

No, thanks.

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Quote of the Day

Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm. - Malayan  proverb

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Jay Cole Jr. - Give this man a column!

Jay Cole Jr. sure seems to worry about gay people a lot, doesn’t he? Today’s letter in the NWA Times is just further proof of why they should retire poor John Terry and replace him with this young firebrand. He’s fun, he’s never boring, and he seems to have an endless list of folks who are responsible for the world’s ills.

In the Garden of Eden, the devil did not have to offer Eve the right to vote in order to enslave mankind to deceptive, gay politicians and their cruel tax-and-spend schemes. All the devil had to do to enslave mankind was to wait until Adam was not present to resist the serpent and then offer the woman another kind of fruit that God had forbidden, thus driving a wedge called sin between man and his creator. Eve voted when she took the first bite.

To get the full Jay Cole Jr. experience:

http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/76899/

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The Queen of Purgatory

A lot of people know Guy Lancaster as the assistant editor of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, but now they can discover his talents as a writer of provocative fiction.

The Queen of Purgatory can be read on several levels, and is a book that requires the reader to read carefully, and actually go back and reread passages.

The book takes place in Parkin, Arkansas. One September morning, while the town is celebrating a re-enactment of Fernando de Soto's first meeting with the Casqui Indians, three local girls are having are having a momentous encounter of their own.

While playing in the local graveyard, the girls meet a woman they claim is the Virgin Mary. This sets off a firestorm in the staunchly conservative small town. Why are good Baptist girls, for example, being visited by the Virgin Mary? For the ignorant and religiously bigoted, this is incredibly offensive.

As a result, the town becomes a destination for those wishing to visit the graveyard, and perhaps see the Virgin Mary for themselves. And the local Baptist minister, seeking answers to the questions the entire town faces, discovers far more than he bargained for.

Along the way we encounter the local P.O.W. camp (left over from World War II), small town bigotry, suicide, a long-forgotten murder, and a device straight out of a science fiction novel.

But along the way, the message imparted by the image of the Virgin Mary hangs over all them all - "Remember your dead."

And it's because the people of Parkin haven't remembered their dead that is at the root of so many of the troubles and subplots in The Queen of Purgatory. Indeed, they haven't just forgotten their dead; in some cases, they seem to have gone through their entire lives, determined not to remember the dead, or the lessons they taught while they were alive.

This is an intriguing novel, and well worth looking into. If your local library doesn't have a copy, ask them to order one.

rsdrake@nwark.com