Pea Arts About

Because I couldn't think of anything for this week's post, and especially because I'm sure you're all dying to know, I thought I'd update you on where I'm at with my late-in-life Star Trekking.  We completed Deep Space Nine a while ago and I do miss that crew. We also watched the four Next Generation movies, and with those done that means my time with Worf (Michael Dorn) is sadly at an end. I do have a soft spot for the stoic Klingon.  As I write, we're most of the way through season 2 of Voyager . Gaping wide holes in logic aside, I'm enjoying it and feeling affinity with members of its crew too, particularly Tuvoc (Tim Russ). I seem to be drawn to characters who have a stern exterior but who are actually rather vulnerable and practise stringent self-control unless something makes them crack. My favourite line so far is Tuvoc pointing out that we must 'not mistake composure for ease'. It struck me to the core. A key theme coming up in recently w

For a week bookended by International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, it was a stressful one. Instances of the public abuse of Meghan Markle came to a head and a young woman was abducted and murdered, it seems, by someone who vowed to serve and protect. With the timelines on every social media platform flooded with experiences of abuse, it’s all been overwhelming, even when hanging out on the podcast accounts in a vain attempt to build community.  It’s an atrocity that should never happen. We should all feel safe to head home at any time and not have to be wary that the unthinkable will happen. But we are because it does. The conversation around this becomes polarised when men who’ve experienced abuse or been attacked ask, ‘what about me?’ only to be told, ‘this is about us; go and start your own thread.’ I empathise with both positions here, and with trans and non-binary victims who fall through the gaps. I think I lean most to the question of who gets to be part of ‘us’.  The emphasis

I've recently spent some time in the company of the good and not-so-good folk of Dreamland and surrounding fairytale/medieval territories. As a huge fan of Futurama I was dubious about getting into another Groening creation for fear it would not live up to the geeky heights of its predecesor. But Netflix had my number as a substantial amount of my watch list is animation, and I bit when Disenchantment was pushed at the release of part 3 in January 2021.  The show's serial structure is notable: it is presented in parts with chapters, not seasons and episodes, reflecting its continuous story-arc rather than episodic self-contained narratives presented across a series. Even the designated lands, countries and settlements in between throughout the diegesis align with litereary genres and sub-genres all with their roots in fairytale, fantasy and science-fiction. Each place and the microcosmic communities or groupings within have despots, with unease and social change brewing amongst

I feel thick as champ for not realising until recently that actor Stephen Rea had been married to former paramilitary Dolours Price. It's one of those things I probably was aware of 10+ years ago while researching my PhD but hadn't appreciated the significance of, and then my trauma-addled, burnt-out brain erased the knowledge. It may also be that I take so little notice of celebrities' personal lives that I simply never knew. Plus she died at a time when the flag protests were causing havoc in Belfast and I was starting a temporary and all-consuming new life in Aberdeen. Either way, it's a revelation to me now, and one that feels like an oversight in my PhD and the subsequent book based on it, specifically their conclusions which confront the pervasive legacy of the Disappeared.  The ramifications of Rea voicing Willie Doherty's video installation Ghost Story (2007) now hit me like a punch to the gut. It is Buried (2009), which became an unvoiced companion to Gho