BSG: Everyone Is So Angry

There's a lot of angst in the world, for some reason. No one really ever seems able to get rid of their angst. I assume that if we found a way to eliminate angst, then there wouldn't be either any entertainment or need for entertainment. In this respect, angst in a good thing.


Even in the future, there's a lot of angst. Cheif (who is no longer Cheif, but now Petty Officer Tyrol), Tigh, Adama, Roslin, Baltar - these are all very angsty people.


Take the Cheif for example. He's swamped with greif over his wife's suicide, thinking that it was his position as a Cylon that drove her to such (when really, it was not a suicide, but murder). So angsty is he that, in a dramatic turn from the beginning funeral, where he spoke up one side and down the other on how Callie was the light of his eye, the spring in his step, the dead skin cells in his hair, et cetera, he goes on a drunken tirade, and claims that Callie was a form of settling, that he was really supposed to be with Boomer and that Callie represented a life chosen from a limited stock, a life forced upon him. As a result of his defaming Callie, the Admiral demotes him.

Tyrol has always been one of my favorite characters, simply because his emotions were pretty well guarded. Besides one second season episode, detailing his fear that he, too, is a Cylon (which, wink wink, was true), he was very clouded - his relationship with Callie even more so. I'm not sure what to make of his ramblings - whether or not we're supposed to believe that Callie was settling, and as replusive as he described - but it was a speech I had been waiting for.

Tigh, still trying to find his way without anyone knowing he's lost, attaches himself to the Number Six. He wants to know how to cope with guilt, with everything from Ellen, the wife he murdered, to his own position as a Cylon. Guilt seems to be to Battlestar was fate is to LOST - the overarching theme. The show's supposed to be, underneath, about humanity dealing with guilt. Guilt equals angst, and so on. Six, instead, launches into a speech on her love for Baltar. Tigh hallucinates and sees his Ellen giving the same speech, making Tigh and Baltar interchangable, at least to the women they love.

Oh, and then Tigh asks Six to hit him as hard as she can.

Baltar, angst because his cult was being raided by the ominous sounding Sons of Ares, fights the man. He storms a local church service, acting like Jesus driving out the merchants, and points out something that many people gloss over: Zeus was, in fact, a serial rapist. But he's doing much of this initial stuff against his will. He's actually forced by his hallucinations to march upon armed guards, who beat him senseless. This experience, however, fuels his own Sermon on the Mount type speech. Baltar believing in himself? That's scary.

And I listed Roslin as angsty, but that may very well be simply because she is dying. Can't help that. And this episode she felt like she had to point out at every turn that she really was dying. Though this time it is carrying much more weight than last - look, this is a wig. Look, this is my funeral. Look, this is my love. Will Adama and Roslin ever get over their respect angsts to come out and say that? Maybe in the season finale.

IN OTHER NEWS, Tori thinks herself perfect and sans guilt, Tigh and Six start a fight club, Tigh and Six may have started a relationship, and there were three seconds of Starbuck because the producers could not think of any way to fit her in outside of montage.

Will the crew of Galatica ever get over their angst, make amends with their dads, and finally get the girl who's currently dating the cool kid in school? Only My Chemical Romance knows. But, again, I'm assuming everything will be just peachy at the end.

I Find Room In The Stables

Yesterday, I awoke at six in order to catch the first train out of Rome going to Cinque Terre, an Italian national park, which moonlights as the Italian Riviera. I wanted to spend my last weekend abroad in Cinque Terre, alone and all reflective like.

The train I rode on had compartments like a small house, with bedrooms of six seats each and a long hallway running beside. It was so full up that I rode the entire four hours in the hallway, on a makeshift seat in a long line of placeless people, feeling very much like a part of those pictures of rural buses with as many people and chickens sardined in as possible.

Cinque Terre, it turned out, was much the same. The park has five towns, all connected by hiking trails overlooking the ocean, but yesterday, people walked four abreast up and down the trails, so that those on the inside track of the trails couldn't even see the ocean. The trails were paved with people like cobblestones, from American and Germay and Japan and Italy and so on.

Yesterday was Liberation Day, which celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy. I watched a movie about it once - the occupation, not the end. It was called Open City. It was extremely good. However, my experience with Liberation Day was not so.

After spending the day hiking through a flesh forest of tourists, I turned to the hostel in Cinque Terre, in one of the five cities, Manarola. There was a sign on the door: FULL. Oh. On talking to the proprietor, I found out that there were no rooms to be had in all five towns; he directed me to the neighboring town of La Spezia. So I went to La Spezia, and found that they, too, were completely full up - not a room in town. I did meet two other students, Mack and Maggie, from UC Berkley, who were in the same situation. They suggested going to Florence, and, without any other ideas, I conceded.

I first found that there was no room in the hostel around 7:00. I boarded the train to Florence at 9:20. And it was on this train that someone, no doubt overwhelmed by an intense patriotism brought on by Liberation Day, stole my bag.

So, in addition to the MacBook Pro, RIP Mountain Smith Manny Pack, Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, another notebook, a camera, a nalgene, and my passport.

I actually feel a little bad for the thief, who went to so much trouble to snatch my pack, but who doubtlessly felt his heart sink when he opened the bag and found only a few novels, a notebook with notes on the narrative logistics of time travel, and my passport. What seems very precious to me probably didn't carry much weight with him. Thief, whoever you are, I am sorry I didn't have anything better.

Once in Florence, in true California kid fashion, Mack and Maggie abandoned me; I was left to my own devices, which were few now that I had no luggage. It was around midnight. After an hour I ascertained that there were no more rooms in Florence than in Cinque Terre or La Spezia. Liberation Day is a very popular holiday. So I took in as many cups of coffee as possible before being thrown out of a closing bar, and spent the night wandering the streets of Florence, attaching myself to various English speakers, and writing on a few napkins I nymmed from said bar. After the train station opened at 4:00, I found a quiet spot and remained there until my train back to Rome at 5:50.

And so that is how I ended up spending the low point of my semester in a window display case in the train station of Florence, writing on scrap paper and making basic conversation with another homeless man.

The passport will be reissued by the American Embassy, but not until Monday; my flight, which leaves Monday, will have to be changed. With all luck, I'll now be home on Tuesday.

I Cut A Greatest Hits

With only a few days left in Italy, I've already run the entire gambit of leaving sentimentality. I was eager to go home, then eager to leave, afraid to return to a world that passed me by, looking forward to reinserting myself into society, hungry for fried chicken, anxious to watch English television, nostalgic for Italian television, but I have finally come to terms with the separation. I think the mark of all good break ups are a Greatest Hits - not favorite moments or melodramatic cream clouds, but the actual entertainment that gets one through the entire debacle. So here is mine.

Whilst here, I've read around 8000 pages, watched and listened to countless hours of iPod, and I tell you this not trying to top any story, but so that you can understand my newfound position as ne're do well. As it turns out, when you take away my immediate friendset, I'm out of ideas.

I didn't include things like iTunes, the institution of writing, or Luke Holland, simply because they weren't mass marketed entertainment. A good rule of thumb is that the selections have to be able to be preformed in charades. Which is another thing I didn't include on the list, but might be an Honorable Mention.

I also didn't include my computer, because it left me, and I'm still bitter. Since it died, I've been having to post from an internet cafe that's more like a computer closet. I have an account here, under the name Donald Turbo, which is something that I did not instigate. It was an honest mistake by the Indian proprietor. I also didn't include psuedonyms and false prefixes, though I've used a lot of them in traveling, from Captain Cass to Doctor Donald.

And so on.

10) THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY; Michael Chabon. When my mother came to visit at the beginning of March, she brought this book. It won the Pulitzer or something. Whatever. It was not only a fantastic story about growing up, but it was thick as a stone when it came to the world it took place in. Years, literally years of research went into it before Chabon started writing. That's heroic. Plus, it was suggested to me by Seth Cohen.

9) THE SUMMER BUMMER; episode six of the fourth season of THE O.C. Pivotal episode in THE O.C. canon. It's the point where THE O.C. ceases to be THE O.C. anymore and becomes something wholly different. But I love it. It's the end of all the drama and the true beginning of the end, plus there are some great Seth Cohen moments, and a solid O.C. music montage at the end.

8) GALAPAGOS, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, and OTHERS; Kurt Vonnegut. I read Kurt Vonnegut's books simply for the prefaces - completely serious. Any Vonnegut books I could find in Rome, in English, I would sit down with and read the preface, where Vonnegut spins so many metaphors so quickly that it all goes over my head, and all I'm left with is what seems like a congenial conversation with a wise, innappropriate friend. I then bought the book. I've actually bought every Vonnegut book I could find in Rome.

7) BATTLESTAR GALATICA; seasons three and four. Though the fourth season only debuted a month ago, I have been watching BSG at intervals scattered across the semester. Before the start of this final season, I watched about half of the third season, choice juicy selections coming from the beginning, middle, and end. And you may ask, why didn't you go outside? You're in Rome! But at this point in the year it was too cold.

6) FEEL THE ILLINOISE; Sufjan Stevens. Stevens may have become my very favorite musician, which is a position I know he has been personally jockeying for, going on a year or two now. Well, congratulations, Sufjan. You did it. You impressed me, with your sly lyrics, your trumpets, and your sublte wisdom. Kudos to you, my friend.

5) HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY; Douglas Adams. I was looking for something else to do (you know, besides walk around Rome starstruck) in the Lionhead Bookstore, the big English bookstore near Piazza Popolo, when I found this box set of the five books of the series. It all went quick and so swimmingly - Adams has a masterful imagination but stops short of seriousness, and, as we all know, seriousness is what keeps science fiction out of the mainstream. Plus, the GUIDE was invaluable when I went to London, for various landmarks it provided.

4) ARMCHAIR APOCRYPHA; Andrew Bird. This album was declared the official album of Rome by the Pope a few weeks ago, right before he went to America and started a Catholic (read: universal) revolution. It has a string section like Bocelli's larynx, and lyrics that fall into the category of "Don't Mean Anything But Sound Like They're Very Deep," which are a favorite of mine. The song Scythian Empires was the official theme song of Rome (so said the Pope).

3) LOST; season four. So season three, yes, it might have drug a little. There were some misfires. And this season, too, has had a few misfires, and several miscues, but these do not usurp the show from it's position as the network arena's Zeus - it is the best show on television, and the Desmond episode early on, The Constant, proved it. Look for a strong finish.

2) DAVID COPPERFIELD and A TALE OF TWO CITIES; Charles Dickens. No one knows more about growing up than Dickens, other than, say, God. And he's a master at telling these type stories, any which way: with a slow moving, cuddly plot in COPPERFIELD or an action story in CITIES. Also, he may very well be the funniest writer that talks as if he's recently turned into Samuel Johnson's dictionary.

1) PUSHING DAISIES; season one. And there's only been one season so far. It returns in the fall. In fact, there's only been nine episodes so far, due to the strike, but I've seen them all. Three times. Yes, in my semester stay, I've watched the entire first season of PUSHING DAISIES three times over. And I love it. It's a fairy tale soap bubble that doesn't pop, and involves drama that provides little unwanted tension, so the show's climaxes can still be watched by smiling faces. If only so the world.

Reading over the record of my semester, it now occurs to me that I may not have gone out of doors much. Well - that may be true. I did visit some monuments, but all that is becoming hazy now. There was a great big...thing...you know what, these things don't matter. I can always look at pictures. I just want to be entertained.

I Am Finished

An hour ago, I finished my schooling here in Rome. At the end of four months, all I can remember now, after about an hour of slipping away, is that the painter Caravaggio killed a man and spent his artistic career on the lam. That's a fact you don't easily forget (neither did the authorities, who hunted him until he died at 35, immediately after being pardoned). However, all other knowledge not tied to interestingly colored anecdotes have passed away, lost in the swirling edies of unconnected thought - no, my mind isn't always disjointed, but it is on most occasions double jointed.

The point is, I've spent a semester learning a trade that I'll only remember by tidbits and fun facts. If I ever return to Rome, I foresee a future staring at various buildings and art pieces, knowing that at one time there was a place in the very back section of my brain, a section cubicle that held all the information pertaining to the art and artisan, yet I'll draw a blank. I will have previously spit out all the pieces that slowed me down and distracted me from distraction. But I guess that's what blank spaces really are: areas of information which we threw overboard in storms, to try and make our heads lighter and concentrate on the things that really interest us, like Caravaggio's off color life. Now that's entertainment.

I haven't lost it all; I have some records, notes and notebooks of what will seem, in a short while, jibberish, but which involve mostly all that I've learned. I've also my sketchbook, which I had to keep for the architecture portion of the program; I had to practice sketching one building and then the next, expanding my understanding of arches and supports and flying buttresses and such (there's something I will remember: the flying buttress. I won't remember what it did, but I sure will remember it).

I had to turn in twenty of those sketches as a part of my final. All the other students, who have been so sketching going on at least four years now, came off with sheets that I would hang on my walls. I cam off with some odder things.

This comes from Hadrian's Villa, in Tivoli, south of Rome. As you can clearly see, Boba Fett was there, flying over the main wall of the courtyard.

These are the apartments of the Garabatella, which people were put in when Mussolini demolished their neighborhoods to make way for his nationalistic boulevards. And yes, that is the Hamburgler there, on the balcony.

This is the view of the Tate Modern in London, from the Millenium Bridge. Honestly, this is as good as it gets. And you may say, that's not a true likeness of the sun, but, have you ever tried to sketch the sun?

And yes, I did turn these in as part of my final grade. Pity me, I dare you.

BSG: And There Shall Be No More Happiness

The Ties That Bind, the third episode of the season, pretty much killed all happiness and good will fostered by the previous showing. Since it's the beginning of the season, I can only guess that it's downhill from here. So, way to go, Battlestar Galatica.

Adama and Roslin made up the same way that they always do: by pretending that nothing ever happened. I swear, there are no apologies needed in the fleet; Lee expounded a little on this theory in Baltar's trial, but pretty much forgiveness is floating around in the air. There's probably a forgiveness ship in tow, processing sins and churning out saints. So, Adama and Roslin are back to buddy buddy old flames, though I'm guessing Adama's son will cause a little rough water. Real sons always have issues with step mothers.

Lee has finally made his last transition from pilot to politician, with was hailed with one of those, I don't know what I'm doing moments, a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington move of standing up in court and saying something that gets shoved right back. Lee here, however, is a little manipulated by Tom Zerek, the current vice president, ex subversive, and former Captain Apollo in the 1970s. Apparently, Roslin's turning the fleet into a facist state, with a Madonna at the lead. Doesn't fly with Lee, who lets freedom ring even with scumbags like Baltar. So he calls her out: with Zerek's help (which is undoubtedly fueled by selfish motivation), Lee reveals Roslin's preliminary plans for a tribunal answerable only to her, with powers to hold and try anyone. Just like the Cylons on New Caprica.

Needless to say, there is little love being lost between Lee and Roslin, at the moment.

Little love lost between the Cylons, too. (Where are these people losing love? Can they find it? Do they need help?) An all out civil war has erupted following the self aware status of the Centurions and the move to unbox D'Anna and find the Final Five. Brother Cavil, who is carrying on a May-December fling with Boomer, ugh...ugh. Oh man. Let me recover.

Brother Cavil pretty much broke bread all over the Six and her crew, in such a way that bread need not be broken no longer: he destroyed the Six controlled ships in an area where downloading, and thus resurrecting, is impossible. How will the wronged party return? Well, they'll find a way. Cavil's too creepy to win. Also, Cavil might in fact be the creator of the Cylon skin jobs. He seems so intent on keeping rank and law that he must have some sort of stake in this beyond what the other models see. But that's wild supposition.

Kara's sewage ship, which somehow hand picked the biggest brains on Galatica, is lost. Actually, it's dirty, and it's lost. The disorder might be the first problem. No one actually thought to clean up the sewage ship before heading out, or even in the down time while traveling. Sewage helmets, and I'm only assuming they are thus, cover the tables where these people eat. That rules out any form of a three second rule. Another explanation might be that there was a raging costume party the night before.

It has been three weeks since they launched, and everyone hates Kara except Sam, who has nothing but puppy love, and Helo, who is incapable of ill will. Kara sits in her private quarters on the space version of the ship from Heart of Darkness, painting pictures and changing her mind. She also likes to mess with Sam's heartstrings, but, let's be honest, he doesn't stand a chance. She's slipping, she tells him, as if her body is an alien form. Yes, she has a one way ticket to a climatic death come end season.

But the kicker to the show was Cally, Cheif, and Tori. Cliff notes: Cally commits suicide, Cheif becomes depressed, and Tori is a bad guy. But I have to get something off of my chest. Cally has always been the one character I hated. She has a fat face and a bad delievery. The producers were wise to keep her in the background, and I even began to like her innocent flirting and adrupt marriage with the Cheif. However, whenever she said anything or got angry or was shown at all as the center of a shot, I hated her. I so glad she's gone. Next, Tori has always been teh one character I strongly disliked. She always looks as if she's been drugged and she is not, I repeat not a looker. I thought I was to get a two-fer in that airlock, but no.

The question is, Tori? No doubt her motivation comes from Baltar, who she might have love at first sight with. His absence from this episode is a strong indicator that he instructed her to do so, which means he probably knows everything Tori does. He has his theories about Hera, the Cylon-human hybrid. Finding out that the Cheif was a Cylon, meant that his baby was also a hybrid, and fundamental to the future. Thus, Tori was sent to comandeer the child and knock off an annoying character.

This begins what would seem to be one big spiral for the Cheif. I loved the flashbacks, and the reminders of the happiness of the seasons past, and how young and thin he looked back then, but really, that's the happiest we'll see him till this show ends. He's in a corner, and dangerous in the same degree of Tori (who, still at Roslin's side, could be sowing much more damage than just one kill).

IN OTHER NEWS, all familiar faces not needed were exported to a sewage ship, Kara married Sam because he was pathetic, Sam got a very pathetic tattoo, I like Sam and Sam's tattoo, am I pathetic?

Like Cheif, I suspect that, given the relationships that have been destroyed (all save Helo, that mirror of constants), right about now is the time that characters are going through that unhappy stage that has to come before the happy stage in fiction. So, no more happiness until the end. I'm reminded of the point in The Muppet's Christmas Carol, where, when the action gets a little scary, narrators Gonzo and Rizzo peace out, telling the audience, "we'll see you in the lobby."

I Cook? Again?

After a month and a half of hitting the kitchen like I hit the weights, with an open palm, because, let's face it, if you hit the weights with a closed fist you'll break your hand, I took a brief hiatus from the hot plate in favor of someone else's cooking. For about two weeks now, I have been bouncing around from restaurant to restaurant, avoiding the act of preparing my own meals like someone who's fallen off the horse. But, I had Chinese food a few nights ago and the subsequent morning got sick directly in front of my departing guest, Mary Kate the Actress, who came to Rome after I visited her in London. I gave her quite a send off, with fireworks and everything.

So I've decided, especially in the light of my remaining funds, to recommit myself to the culinary arts. In fact, I've so recommitted myself that I'm going to go ahead and throw all of the suppositions and standards of cooking out the window and create something that truly reflects who I am. I won't be held by petty traditions. I will make meat sauce.

Meat sauce is about the only thing I haven't touched, and thus mangled beyond edibility. I have sauted mushrooms into peanuts, I have cooked fish into chips, I have swung three times at alfredo sauce and struck out. So I thought, why not screw up the meat sauce part, too.

Pretty much all you need, I was told, is a block of hamburger stuffs and possibly some spices. Put the hamburger in a pan and the pan on a hot plate for however long your heart tells you, then add those various spices, just like Emeril. Then probably some sauce.

Did you know that the grease that comes from meat hardens, real fast? DO NOT pour it down your drain. It is known to cause problems.

BSG: Wipe Those Tears Away, Soldier...Sailor...Whatever

For the second episode of the final season of Battlestar Galatica, Six of One, which concerned all those fickle space characters and their all important life goals, was pretty up ending. Not a whole lot of people died. In fact, only Cylons died, which doesn't exactly count. Considering that the producers have promised to kill off a great deal many people, I guess they're just storing up backpayments for the grand finale, which will be all madness and mayhem, plus just an inkling of hope.

No, as could have been guessed, Kara did not shoot Roslin, because that would have stopped about half the wheels in the story machine. Instead, Roslin tried to shoot Kara, and ending up shooting a picture of her and the admiral. Heavy handed foreshadowing? Okay, so it is. But at least they're going somewhere. Adama and Roslin haven't been at odds since the first season of the show, and have been lovey dovey since, making out like an old married couple. Well, now they are having drunken fights like an old married couple. I was almost afraid that Adama was to backhand Roslin, but it didn't come to blows. It just ended in Adama saying, "You can stay in my room, but stay out of my head." Ouch. I guess we won't be healing that wound in the next couple of episodes.

Yes, Adama's having a hard time. Roslin, his lady love, is dying and he is not the person to talk about such things. Plus, his psuedo daughter may be a Cylon and is on the fast track to execution, like Texas except in a space craft. Finally, his son is leaving the service after three seasons.

Yes, Lee leaves his job as CAG, which gets readily associated with JAG in my mind for some obvious connections, both in plot and name, in a move precipitated by last season, when he adruptly quit in yet another father son arguement. This time it stuck, however, and he went through a montage carbon copied from those times that soap operas waved goodbye to their departing stars. Lee will not be leaving the show, though, because he is yet another wheel in the story machine. He still has work to do. It was nice, though, to have that moment of happiness, to see he and his father in the happy moments in between, and all our favorite pilots (Hot Dog? Where have you been?).

In the Cylon fleet, everything went to bedlam, which, as we all know, was a famous English mental hospital. Three of the models wanted to lobotomize the raiders, the TIE fighter doohickeys: these are led by Cavil, who seems to be trying to keep the Cylons functioning as they are meant to, keep them honest. The three remaining, of course, oppose this. So the solution is to uninhibit the Centurions (read Storm Troopers) and let them off the offending parties. Mirror image of what happened to the humans to start this whole thing? The next step, involving the victors who are so keen on finding the Final Five within the human fleet, will probably be to unbox D'Anna, who has seen their faces. The reason I guess this is because D'Anna's still on the cast list. I know, genius.

The Core Four, in the fleet, are still searching for the fifth, though, and send Tori to use her womanly ways on Baltar, now the leader of a woman cult. You'd think he'd be able to withstand a little seduction, but Baltar is Baltar, and now he's seeing visions of himself, which (or who) gives him advice on what he would do. What? Exactly. Although I don't understand it, it's darned funny to hear the Brothers Baltar talk through his thought process and compliment one another. And nothing was really accomplished; they may or may not have made a baby, but that's to be seen. No information was exchanged, minus numbers.

Finally, when everyone thought Kara was to be thrown out the airlock, Adama gives her a ship, and crew, and Helo, the Man Mountain, to go find Earth her way. His reason was simple: he was tired of Roslin being right. Score one for masculinity! Stick it to the woman! Though now that I think of it, it kind of hurts, knowing Adama and Roslin, the very cute gerry atrics, are now at odds, and fighting one another in very diplomatic ways. Sigh.

IN OTHER NEWS, Lee and Dee went through a very civil divorce which involved no ceremony at all, Lee and Kara still have emotional baggage to sort through, Tori may be falling for Baltar, Adama and Roslin are on the rocks, and this really is turning into a soap opera.

Since it has taken me this long to watch and write about Battlestar, my comfort is a new episode is standing in the wings. So hurrah and good luck to you, my friend.