Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Looking again at the Wikipedia articles promoted as recently improved, I glanced at one about “sports fans,” got a bit more specific by looking up “fantasy sports,” and then turned to the description of an IBM computer applied to that pastime early on. Heading on to how that computer was constructed from “cards” combining what would now seem simple electronic components, I then looked at the similar system of the Digital Equipment Corporation. That had me thinking back to the AltaVista search engine, and then I looked forward to Kagi, which I still haven’t sampled yet to see if I want to start paying for its service. An offsite link did appear critical of it, though, so I took a look at it and noticed the piece offered some faint praise of a small search engine I hadn’t quite heard of before. Once I’d managed to find Marginalia Search through a different search engine, my first impulse was to type in “MSTings,” and that managed to list part of my home page first. As gratifying as that was, I did then remember that the very first time I’d connected to the Internet (somewhat in advance of even AltaVista) I’d been thinking about the Infocom adventure games that hadn’t had a hint book in their economy collection (even if the first such collection’s hint book, in not being able to use the special ink and developer pen of the original “InvisiClues,” pretty much gave me the solution to everything any time I tried to find the subtlest starter hint). I didn’t have quite as much success now just turning up results with my first effort, but a bit of prompt refinement did work a bit better.

Checking Satellite News a few days ago, I noticed an item that the latest release from Rifftrax involved an animated Little Mermaid movie; not the animated Little Mermaid movie, of course, but an older film acknowledged as having been animated in Japan. I thought a bit of how I’d dared myself to chance Rifftrax at last when they’d taken on something that was part live-action Japanese special effects, part Japanese animation, but also a bit of how I hadn’t gone on from there to see if any of their other feature-length “riffs” also refrained from what I’d react to as “cheap shots at specific familiar targets” (and others might react to me with “good grief, he’s still dwelling on that.”)
( Thinking ahead in any case )

A few days ago, I happened on a pointer to someone who’d made a deep dive into that legendarily off-kilter fantasy story The Eye of Argon. By going through the other available-online issues of the fanzine where the story had appeared, she’d got a better sense of its author Jim Theis. I knew Theis had been sixteen years old when he’d written The Eye of Argon, and having kept some of the stuff I wrote when I was sixteen I’m quite willing to be forgiving. It also happened that Theis seemed to get along well with the rest of the fans chronicled in the “zines,” where I’d been writing pretty much for my own private satisfaction.

With all of this, though, I am conscious of how I’d first come across The Eye of Argon myself, via the now more than twenty-five-year-old MSTing by Adam Cadre. So far as I can tell Cadre didn’t know how old Jim Theis had been, which can add a certain sense of nastiness to the “riffing” for all of the thoughts over the years, from people other than me too, about that MSTing being a possible diving-in point to that different sort of fanwork. It’s at least different than having reached an unfortunate ambiguity about “condemnation of professional works” in the later years of the heyday of MSTings, anyway. The deep dive itself mentioned having been inspired by the more recent “372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back” take on The Eye of Argon, which had been a bit more aware of Theis’s situation.

Reporting on having managed to get an older compiler for text-based adventure games working with a special library promised to make adventures much older computers wouldn’t choke on provided one more post for this journal. I finished that post, though, aware of an obvious next step but not quite certain if I could manage it before flitting along to some other hobby of the moment. All I’d done was compile a sample Inform 6 source code file (adapting “Cloak of Darkness,” a sort of “minimal adventure to try out different text adventure systems”) provided with the PunyInform library. As for cobbling together even simpler experiments of my own, I thought back to when I’d dabbled with Inform 6’s successor. Inform 7, however, operates on altogether different principles, and I was also thinking of how I’d found some guides and introductions to Inform 6 years before but never got around to writing my own games.
( A step not taken before )

As my first benefit for chipping into the “revive the revival” Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter, I was sent an invitation to a new message board. It took me a little while to get around to completing my signup, but once I had some measure of nostalgia had me looking straight off for threads that might reference those antique fanworks of the series, MSTings.

There was indeed a thread on that subject, and along with happening to link to my minimalistic web site concatenating links to the MSTings that had been posted to Usenet, I noticed a site I hadn’t known about before called “The MSTing Canon.” In a brief compass, it sets out to introduce you to the subject (with “The Eye of Argon,” a work I’ve also thought would work well there even if its ever so slightly ominous conclusion leads on to the rest of Adam Cadre’s MSTings) and run through its decade-long history, with special emphasis on “the Marrissa MSTings.” While not all of my own personal favorites wound up included, that just proves the field is broad enough for interesting variations. Two group MSTings I contributed to did just happen to show up, anyway.

The person who put the site together has even written a new MSTing, in which Jonah and the bots “riff” on “My Immortal,” theoretically a Harry Potter fanfic. I recall having heard about the story back when I read the books to see what a good number of the positive Star Wars fans I’d fallen in with at last were also talking about, and diving into the MSTing now I realised I had looked at a work trying to be a deliberate parody of the source (although, of course, that’s a tricky thing to do with a poorly written story). It was a bit invigorating to discover I’m not alone in remembering MSTings, even if I can’t ask for much more; having got out of whatever habit of reading fanfiction I had, I’m not quite in a position to keep turning out MSTings of my own.

So far as “fan events at anime conventions” go I was at least aware of davemerrill’s “Anime Hell,” but despite some curiosity going to see one of them didn’t mesh with my “early to bed, early to rise” schedule. Recent announcements of an online-streaming version did get my attention; as better as it would be for everyone for that not to be necessary, I could see it as a welcome-enough diversion. It also turned out I could resort to a backup browser and watch the video from a Facebook address without a Facebook account.

The eclectic mix of clips and commercials keyed into my interest in Mystery Science Theater 3000 and animation in general (and I found brief distraction from an old “Women of Robotech” toy commercial by spotting the keyboard of an original Macintosh in it); saying something about there being no particular emphasis on pieces of animation made in Japan might, I suppose, produce an “that’s exactly the point” response. A selection from Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! did have a welcome “it’s not all nostalgia” feeling to it (for all that it had featured nostalgia for an older series to begin with and led into a bit from that show). I am a bit aware that viewing this with a crowd able to share out-loud laughter would have increased the humour, but this might be one case where having missed out on the unadulterated experience before didn’t hurt me.

Satellite News fills out its Mystery Science Theater 3000 news reports with announcements of the latest releases from Rifftrax. It’s been years since that “post-MST3K project” from Mike Nelson and some of his fellow “Best Brains” seemed to shift its main focus from “sync these audio files to your own copies of Hollywood blockbusters; surely, you want to hear them put down” to “strange and obscure B-to-Z-movies downloadable with the ‘riffs’ mixed in.” In that time, some of the obscurities turned up have looked bizarre enough to pique my attention, and yet the constant thought cheap shots at targets now in the sights of far too many might be thrown in at any moment have always left me in a sort of “there might be a coconut centre” apprehension.
( A strange combination )

If it hadn’t been for Mike Nelson and Conor Lastowka recording a comedically critical look at the novel Ready Player One, I would have just kept steering past the book, pushed away at first just by gloom at the thought of another lip-smacking anticipation of inescapable dystopian collapse but then by complete leeriness at the awareness that dark setting was just the wrapping for an obsessive, uncritical embrace of the pop culture surrounding the 1980s and now remembered just perhaps because people took it in when they were young. One thing that led to them taking on the book, though, was its impending adaptation into a Steven Spielberg movie. They did record a special episode about the movie, but I didn’t quite feel like taking that in “instead of” the movie; at the same time, I didn’t want to pay money to see it in a theatre or to buy a Blu-Ray. When I sorted out there were discs of it at the library to borrow, though, I finally decided to take a chance.

I’d understood from the trailers and a review or two the movie wasn’t quite the same as the novel, but to be honest the movie started giving me a sense something had gone right for once writing the script. “Unending study of movies, TV shows, and video games” didn’t show up very much, and the riddles that pointed through the treasure hunt seemed to have more to do with grasping the regrets of the deceased creator of the virtual reality world than just happening to hit on the right specific yet vaguely referenced property and then have it memorized. Perhaps, too, when things are on screen to be recognized or not instead of being listed as names it’s easier to just let them wash by. (However, there was a bit of a kick for me seeing the original Gundam still managed to be licensed...) I suppose it would still be easy enough to criticize the movie, and right now I’m not all that sure I want to hear whether Mike and Conor made efforts at that, but there is an odd satisfaction to finding enjoyment through lowered expectations.

On a short vacation at the end of last month, amidst visits to museums and general sightseeing I dropped in to an ordinary if large library and headed for its space travel section. There, I saw a book I remembered having heard of before about the first space shuttle mission. Flipping quickly through Rowland White's Into the Black before closing time left me thinking I'd like to have more time to read it. Before finishing my vacation I'd already looked up that it had an e-book edition, aware of the way books pile up around my place. Before committing to that purchase, though, I checked my area bookstore just on the offhand chance to see a paperback copy of Into the Black on the shelf, and I went ahead and bought it, thus adding to the piles.
( The past and the secrets )

Some imp of the perverse might have been driving me as I noticed an item on Satellite News that Rifftrax would be providing their own brand of commentary in a synch-it-yourself audio file timed to Rogue One. The odds seem minimal I'd ever listen to that track, given that Rifftrax having begun by "needling blockbusters" has kept me away from the "video files with pre-synched commentary featuring more MST3K-like B-to-Z-movies" they do mostly offer these days (although that in turn might have been an "I can't become utterly paralyzed with fear I might hear disparaging references I can't find funny" push to pledge to the MST3K revival Kickstarter). I looked at the comments, though, and one of the first ones was someone more or less saying "sure; Jyn is the Mary Sue Rey didn't turn out to be." Someone else riposted, and the comment "You don't know what a Mary Sue is" came up.
( Something came to mind at once )