Fringe 4.11: Alternate Astrid

Another excellent Fringe - 4.11 - tonight, which features Fauxlivia and Alternate Astrid on our side, good Eternal Bald Observer action, and some kind of hint about the origin of the EBOs, or what they are ...

Alternate Astrid was a delight to see - from her first meeting our Astrid in Walter's lab, and throughout the episode.  She's a high-level mathematical genius autistic on the other side, and she's here to learn something more about her life from our Astrid.  Alt-Astrid lost not only her mother as a teenager, as our Astrid did, but just lost her father.  She's conflicted about her condition.  She wonders if the reason her father was emotionally distant from her was because of her and her condition. Our Astrid assures her that her father - our Astrid's father, who is still alive - is cold and distant, so alt-Astrid shouldn't blame herself for her distance from her father.  It's a touching, compassionate gesture - brought home when we meet our Astrid's father at the end of the episode, and see how warm and loving he actually is to his daughter.  Fine acting by Jasika Nicole in both roles, and a touching standalone story.

And on another track, we get an interesting piece of the continuing story, too.   We meet a man - a savior, or an angel - who can see past, present, and future, and makes it his business to euthanize people who will soon against all odds die terrible deaths.  Sound a little familiar?  Well, not too long ago, we heard Peter explaining the EBOs to Olivia - that they inhabit past, present, and future - and they're like some sort of guardian angels, too, aren't they ...

And, sure enough, this new angel lives (and dies) by Reiden Lake - the very lake that Walter and young Peter once crossed, from which Peter emerged when he came back this season, etc.  And sure enough, the EBOs are on hand - two of them, the head guy and another one, not September.  And they recover something that September lost, and the other EBO tells the head EBO that September did not follow orders regarding Peter, and let him return to this world ...

Interesting stuff ... a few more pieces moved slightly forward ... and I loved that Nissan Leaf that Olivia and Peter were driving.  It may well be my next car, after I finished with my Prius...

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology






audio podcast: review of Fringe 4.11


See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man ... Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realities ... Fringe 4.9: Elizabeth ... Fringe 4.10: Deceit and Future Vision

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

 

Chris Matthews is Right about Fast Trains

I finally found something about Chris Matthews I can cheer about.  For the past few days, he's been urging the Federal government to embark on a campaign of getting interstate fast rail service all across America.  Matthews rightly points out that Europe has it, and the Chinese are constructing such service.   He also correctly notes that more people traveling on trains means fewer people traveling via gas-guzzling cars.

He's completely right.  I love driving, especially my Prius, which does save me money and time filling up at the pump.   But the Prius still uses some gasoline, and contributes to the US need for oil.  I feel the same about flying - it's magical.  But traveling by train is more fuel efficient, especially when we're talking about electrified rails.

Train travel is also the most relaxing, at least for me.   I can certainly get a lot more writing done on a train than as a driver (I wrote a good part of The Consciousness Plague on The Lake Shore, Ltd, from New York to Chicago), not to mention sleeping.   Although writing on planes is also easy, no conductor on a train has ever told me I have to shut off my computer, or any electronic device.

In the one part of the country where we do have fast rail service - the Acela, between Boston and Washington, DC and points in between - savvy people know it's best way to get from city to city, and these trains are slower than the ones in France, that is, slower than they could be here.

One of the appeals of the Obama ticket to me was Joe Biden, in particular Biden's devotion to Amtrak, which he long ago recognized as the most efficient means of traveling between Wilmington, DE and Washington, DC.    I hope the Obama administration and Congress take Chris Matthews' appeal to heart, and get America back to work and moving more efficiently, with reduced oil consumption, which can all be done in one master stroke: construction of a fast rail system across the United States of America.

Lovin' My Prius, Part III

Well, I've glowingly blogged and podcast about my Prius a few times in the past two years, but I was reminded again today just why I can't say enough good things about it.

I was sitting in my Prius at an intersection in Westchester County, NY. A big truck got stuck trying to make a turn. I missed about 4 lights before the truck was able to move again. For most of that time, my Prius wasn't costing me a cent of gas, because the internal combustion engine ("ICE") had automatically shut off, and the electrical engine had taken over.

Now, sure, I could have turned any car off, easily. But how many times have you ever really done that, sitting at a light for a long minute? Never, is my answer.

And when you drive in the city, you're stopping at lights, and sometimes stuck at them, almost as often as you blink. And every time that happens, you save a little gas money - that you otherwise would have spent, for literally moving nowhere.

I heard today that Toyota is shutting down an SUV plant in the US, and opening up a Prius production plant. Way to go...

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Like science fiction? Jump into my short story, The Other Car, in which a Prius is a bridge to an alternate reality




Prius podcasts: My Sweet Prius, Part II ... Prius and Bluetooth

Prius blog post: Nine Reasons I Love My Prius

Weeds 3 Eps 4-5: Prius and Gluteus

I've been so busy writing political stuff that I didn't get a chance to post my review of Weeds last week. But I've got my priorities straight now - at least, for the next few minutes - and so herewith a double-shot review of Weeds, Episodes 4 and 5.

They actually do go together in lots of ways - most of them really turning the screws up on Nancy in this ever darker but still very funny comedy. Silas is dealing, Nancy's driving the car - her Prius - as U-Turn gives shoot-em-up payback to the guys who shot Marvin in the gluteus maximus (his certainly maximus), and Nancy ends up with a big shipment of heroin tonight...

But speaking of Nancy's Prius, I was delighted to see her use her car for Bluetooth, wireless phone calls - I've been writing about the enjoyment I've been taking in my Prius Bluetooth connection for almost a year - and U-Turn pick up on that, too. He buys a whole fleet of Priuses for his crew. Sure, it was for the Bluetooth. But nothing wrong in combining a little blue with green. Too bad the Live Earth concert already took place - Al could have had U-Turn on as example of even drug dealers being environmentally helpful (hey, better that than U-Turn driving a gas guzzler).

Meanwhile, Andy's gotten out of his army service - but at a terrible price. His gung-ho buddy is killed by some kind of new weapon, and the military wants to keep this quiet, so Andy's ushered out.

There was also another aspect of this ... Suffice to say that ass seems to be playing a large role on Weeds this year ... and come to think of it, there was something about that in Californication tonight, too...

Anyway ... apologies again for falling behind with my reviews of Weeds ... I'll be better from now on...

See also Nine Reasons I Love My Prius

listen to 20-minute podcast about my Prius and Bluetooth, right here...

And see also Weeds in Perspective

and reviews of other Season 3 episodes: 1 ... 2 ... 3. Important, Appealing Questions ... 6. Ray of Hope ... 7. Conrad Rules! ... 12: Nancy and Conrad! ... 13. Shane Pays the Price ... 14. Just Nancy Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Worse ... 15. Finale: The Fire and the Clean Slate

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss

AMC's Mad Men and Don Draper cut loose last night - with a kiss.

Now our man on Madison Avenue already has a pretty happy sex life - with his wife, blond Betty, and his woman on the side, brunette Midge. Both are fine.

But Don has also been attracted from the beginning to Rachel Menken - also brunette and fine (and Jewish - of note, because the firm is rife with anti-semitism) (but, interestingly, Betty doesn't like it - she's discourages one of her neighbors from making cracks about people with "long noses"). Rachel is owner of a Bloomimgdales-type NYC department store which has hired Don's firm to bring it more dramatically into the second half of the 20th century.

Rachel - played just right by Maggie Siff - doesn't know Don is married. They kiss, he tells her he's married, and she walks away.

But Don seems all shook up about this. He can't concentrate on his daughter's birthday. Disappears when he's sent out to get her birthday cake. And even Betty's beginning to notice...

What strikes me as especially interesting about this is the sheer affect on Don of that kiss. Were things different in 1960, and a kiss then more powerful an act than now? I doubt it. Not in reality. But in our fiction, we have become accustomed to more than just a kiss needed to have such impact.

Meanwhile, the 1960s ambiance continues to be excellent. My favorite business scene in the office has the guys both admiring and ridiculing that new Volkswagen "bug"...

My Toyota Prius was still decades from being born...

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

great interview with Peggy (Elisabeth Moss)...


See also reviews of other episodes: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarettes and Nixon Coming ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad Men 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes


6-minute podcast review of Mad Men

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Nine Reasons I Love My Prius

With Live Earth playing across the globe today, I thought I'd share with you 9 reasons why I'm delighted to be driving a Prius (which I've been doing since last August):

1. Obviously, I'm spending less money on gas.

2. But filling up at the gas station is no pleasure even when the price of gas isn't a problem. Who wants to bake in the hot sun and breathe in fumes in the summer? Who wants to shiver in the wicked cold wind and breathe in fumes in the winter? (This may be a special issue for me - every gas station I visit in the winter seems to be on the windiest corner in the world.)

3. It's fun to lord it over Cro-magnons* and other recalcitrants who love to say, hey, you talk the environmentalist talk, do you walk the walk? Well, I drive the drive, baby...

*(In view of the Geico commercials, I'm sensitive to the species-stereotyping that Neanderthals regularly receive, and therefore I'm refraining from using "Neanderthal" as a colorful synonym for "benighted". Also, Neanderthals play a role in my first novel, The Silk Code.)

4.. Birds and other little critters don't flee for their lives at the approach of my car. When the ICE - internal combustible engine - is off, the Prius drives in stealth mode, and it's sweet indeed. I'm hoping one of these days the birds and chipmunks and who knows what else will follow me down the road, and we'll all burst into song, like in a Disney movie.

5. On the Wikipedia page for the Prius, there's section that appears on and off again with a list of famous Prius owners - you know, like Larry David - and I was on it. (Actually, the list was up for a year, and some Cro-magnon removed it in May. You can see it in archive here, if you're interested. Anyone can reinstate it...) (I could, but won't, because I'm too modest ... nah, not really, I just don't believe in editing Wikipedia pages that concern me, unless it's correcting an outright error.) (When the list was up, being on it was sometimes my #1 reason for loving my Prius...)

6. I love listening to podcasts via my Prius' Bluetooth feature. There's something very cool about hearing a voice that you know as you drive with the windows open on a Spring day. (If you want to hear me, by the way, you can dial 415-223-4124 for my Levinson news clips 3-minute TV reviews, 510-248-0382 for 3 minutes of advice to writers, 415-223-4122 for my infamous Light On Light Through podcast.) (It's all free, except of course for the call.)

7. The car unlocks at your mere approach. This feels to me like something straight out of a science fiction story I read back in the 1950s. Maybe by Alfred Bester?

8. Locking the car is cool, too - by pressing any one of the small black buttons located strategically around the outside of the car.

9. The rear window actually is in two parts, and the lower part somehow rarely gets covered with snow, even in big storms. This means you can jump in your car and get going without having to clean it off completely off - especially useful to me when I'm late and in a hurry, which is almost always.

And I'll leave it there. Not every list has to come to ten.

And I actually have more than ten reasons, but I do also want to mention one thing I don't like about my Prius, just to prove how very objective I am about the car:

I don't like the silver color. For some reason, that's been the color of almost every car I've ever owned. Actually, I do know the reason - I'm always wanting to get my car as quickly as possible (see #9 above), and so I accept whatever color the dealer has in stock. And it always seems to be silver.

But, hey, boring color is a small price to pay when you can do something for the environment, and smile down critics who like to say that environmentalists are hypocrites.

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Like science fiction? Jump into my short story, The Other Car, in which a Prius is a bridge to an alternate reality




Useful links: "My Sweet Prius" and "Prius and the Reunion of Talking and Walking", both at Light On Light Through podcast ... Sweet Prius is near the middle on Light On Light Through player, Talking and Walking, from October, is at the bottom...

See also Lovin' My Prius, Part III

Live Earth and YouTube

Live Earth kicked off a few hours ago, with opening concerts in Australia and Japan.

It will be a great event. A truly worldwide concert to raise even more attention, still needed, about global warming. Another valuable contribution from Al Gore, who should have been President.

But it would be even better, and more effective, if it was available on every media outlet - on YouTube, for example, in addition to MSN.

Here is what I said about over-possessive media and Live Earth in Live Earth may set new stage for Web viewing, an article by Yinka Adegoke published on Friday by Reuters:

Media experts say over-restrictive limitations over broadcast rights on on-demand viewing are fast becoming a thing of the past, particularly for an event which is trying to make a difference by getting in front of many eyeballs as possible.

Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at New York's Fordham University, says video clips will show up eventually on YouTube or elsewhere outside of MSN, so it makes more sense to enable video sharing.

"The idea that any organization can keep something in popular culture to itself is 19th Century thinking," he said.

The human spirit doesn't care who has rights to what. Our technologies are already interconnected to make sharing of video and other content effortless. It's time for our media organizations to wake up and smell the percolation.... Our global needs require it.

Meanwhile, here's an article about some of the other controversies swirling around Live Earth.... The path to improving the Earth never did run smooth...