Book Review: I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy's memoir I Am Spock is humorous, lighthearted, and informative account of his lifelong relationship with the iconic fictional character he created. The son of immigrant Jewish parents, Nimoy began acting as a child. He spent years playing bit parts until his big break came when he won the role of Spock for Gene Roddenberry's NBC series Star Trek (1966-69).  The book's title is a response to to an earlier autobiography he wrote with the sardonic title I Am Not Spock.

Nimoy relates the early years of Star Trek and how he developed the character of Spock for the series. Much to the network and Nimoy's surprise, the character quickly became a cultural phenomenon, even a sex symbol (most of Nimoy's fan mail came from women). He relates many colorful anecdotes from the original shows as well.  Days on the set were long and grueling. He developed a friendship with co-star William Shatner.  After three seasons NBC canceled the series and Nimoy assumed his days playing Spock were finished.

I Am Spock also covers Nimoy's career outside of Star Trek.  He appeared as a regular on the popular ABC series Mission Impossible for a few seasons.  He had a thriving theater career with leading roles in Fiddler on the Roof, even wrote and performed a popular play on the life of Vincent Van Gogh entitled Vincent.  Despite his impressive list of credits Nimoy continued to be associated with the Spock character, sometimes to his chagrin.

As Star Trek grew ever more popular in syndication and fans began organizing conventions, the franchise found new life.  When Star Wars was released in 1977 outer space adventures were back in so Paramount green lit a movie.  The final result, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in December 1979.  Although the reviews were mixed, in time Star Trek became a highly popular series of movies. They remain staples of cable television.

Nimoy's accounts of the Star Trek films are a nice complement to Shatner's own Star Trek Movie Memories.  Everyone remembers when Spock died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nimoy wrote of the death scene:

I'd spent many years inside this character's skin, and I felt a great deal of respect, admiration- and yes even fondness for him (210).

Nimoy directed the next two films in the series, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, arguably the best entries in the series.  He also appeared in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode and in the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek.

Reading I Am Spock, you will discover Nimoy was much more than the iconic character he created, a true artist who worked in theater, film, and photography. 

Nimoy's passing almost a year ago left a gap in a pop cultural landscape Nimoy and his character Spock did so much to create.  He will be missed.  I Am Spock belongs on the book shelves of all Star Trek fans.

Book Review: Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad

A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, is a well detailed and no holds barred history of the early years of SNL.  The bulk of the book covers the first five seasons with the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players", with a few chapters on the 1980s and the rise of Eddie Murphy.

For American television in the 1970s, Saturday Night Live signaled a new era.  TV comedy appealed mostly to a middle aged audience with humor from a bygone era.  There were precursors to SNL such as The Smothers Brothers and Laugh-In.  In England, Monty Python set the template for SNL: witty and irreverent. 

Lorne Michaels, a comedy writer and producer from Canada envisioned a Saturday night TV show to reflect the counterculture ethos: confrontational, irreverent, loud, taking on the powers that be.  In the mid 70s, Saturday night remained a dead zone of reruns and old movies.  

Saturday Night Live debuted on October, 11 1975 with George Carlin hosting.  While the first show looks unremarkable in retrospect, it did set the tone for what was to come.  Unable to perform in skits, Carlin performed his stand up material.  One routine mocked the idea of God, setting network executives through the roof.  The opening sketch with Belushi and Michael O'Donoghue set the tone.

The first season of SNL could very well be the best.  Chevy Chase dominated the season.  A veteran of National Lampoon, a syndicated radio show and magazine, Chase epitomized their fratboy/political humor the show continues to this day.  Chase portrayed President Gerald Ford as a clueless klutz who fell down all time may have tipped the scales in favor of Jimmy Carter.

When Hollywood came calling Chase left midway through the second season.  And the show evolved into something else entirely.

John Belushi, long resentful of Chase's success (envy and jealousy plagued SNL), proved the most funniest and unpredictable cast member with countless classic skits that still hold up, my favorite is the "no coke, pepsi skit" set in a deli.  A Jekyll and Hyde personality, Belushi had the reputation of blowing up at anyone without notice (and would usually immediately apologize).  As his star rose after the Box Office smash of Animal House, his drug use and erratic behavior increased, often too drunk or high to perform on live television, but even in his inebriated state he was electric.

Dan Aykroyd, according to Eric Idle was the only SNL member who could've made it as a Python, proved the most dynamic writer and performer. A mysterious character who believed in the supernatural and UFOs seemed an enigma to many on the show.  He found a soulmate in Belushi. They created the Blues Brothers together which turned into a hit film.  

Bill Murray replaced Chevy Chase and seemed the most unlikely of all to have the most successful movie career.  A native of Chicago, Murray was a working class tough from Chicago who liked to start fist fights. When Belushi and Aykroyd left the show, Murray had to carry their weight.  He went on to a successful movie career with Stripes and Ghostbusters and in recent years reinvented himself as a hipster deity.

The female members of the original cast typically had to step aside for the guys.  Gilda Radner created many memorable characters, including "The Nerds." Lorraine Newman's refusal to do recurring characters and instead be a chameleon by playing all sorts of roles. Jane Curtain, known for distancing herself from the rest of the cast, basically saw SNL as just another job.  Her rivalry with Belushi often veered from friendly to hostile.  

The 80s proved a shaky decade.  Only when Eddie Murphy came along did the show find its footing.  Murphy's work on the show remains unsurpassed: pure comedic genius.

At the heart of SNL is a drama of excess, ego, addiction, rivalry and creativity.  Drug humor proved a big part of the early years and it's well known most of the cast partook in the drug of the era - cocaine. The untimely death of Belushi at age 33 seemed an indictment of 70s and 80s show business culture above all else.

For anyone looking for a definitive account of the early years of SNL, this is the book to read.  

Also, see Live From New York by Tom Shales to hear from the actual players themselves.

Concert Review: Dead & Company at The Nationwide Arena 11-13-15

After their triumphant final concerts at Soldier Field over the summer, three original members of the Grateful Dead have teamed up with John Mayer for a late autumn tour. Last Saturday they performed for over three hours before a capacity crowd at the Nationwide Center in Columbus - putting out good vibes for everyone involved.

Saturday night was my first experience with The Dead.  While I've come to respect their music and especially enjoyed their two epochal albums from the early 70s, American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, I never got the live experience.  

Grateful Dead concerts consist of extended jam sessions spanning a wide array of genres ranging from jazz, blues, country, and many more.

With Bob Weir and John Mayer on guitars and lead vocals, the night opened with Weir briefly acknowledging the tragic events that took place in Paris. 

The show began with a rollicking version of "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo."  The first set emphasized the blues, including a cover of the Willie Dixon classic, "Little Red Rooster."

Seated way at the top of the venue I got a panorama of the crowd jubilantly grooving to the music.  The spirit of the 60s made its presence known. I write that with no irony, the notion that music can bring community and transcendence was evident throughout.

After an intermission, the second set featured extended jams with "China Cut Sunflower" and "Eyes of the World." The most poignant moment for myself was a beautiful version of "Black Peter" from Workingman's Dead.

After an exuberant cover of "Good Lovin" by The Young Rascals, the band capped the evening with "Touch of Grey", a surprise hit for The Grateful Dead back in the 80s.

I found the concert exhilarating, relentless, uplifting. A truly unique experience. All the musicians were clearly having fun and playing in perfect harmony. Mayer's excellent guitar playing skills and Weir's passionate vocals made for a great combination.  

These shows are a must see for any devotee of rock and roll or for anyone looking for an introduction to discover what it's all about.

Concert Review: Wilco at IU Auditorium, 9-25-15

Coming off the heels of their summer release Star Wars, Wilco's taken to the road for a September tour.  I recently caught them at the IU Auditorium in Bloomington, Indiana.

In the past several years Wilco's continued to expand their audience and gain critical acclaim as the quintessential American rock band.  While Jeff Tweedy and his band always give their all for live shows, recently I felt they were getting predictable. But last Friday they sounded revitalized and even offered a few surprises.

The show consisted of three movements.  They entered the stage with a vintage 70s light show behind them and went on to play Star Wars straight through.  Jeff Tweedy and company whizzed through the ever changing styles of Star Wars ranging from Lennonesque pop to New Wave grandeur. 

During the second phase of the show they played straight up versions of their older material, showcasing the breadth of their catalog.  Lead guitarist Nels Cline really took over with virtuoso playing on many of the songs including "Impossible Germany" "Hummingbird" and "Either Way."  Two of their signature songs "Via Chicago" and "Handshake Drugs" were also highlights.

The last and most satisfying part of the concert consisted of an impromptu unplugged performance. With Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt on acoustic guitar, Nels Cline on steel guitar, Mikael Jorgensen on piano, Pat Sansone on banjo, and Glenn Kotche on percussion, Wilco performed "Misunderstood" "Bull Black Nova" "Jesus Ect.." "California Stars" and "A Shot in the Arm."  Thus ending the concert on a poignant note.

Tweedy now takes on a Neil Young stage persona: unassuming, determined, the occasional dry joke. Allowing his band to showcase themselves more prominently seems a step in the right direction.  

Over 20 years ago Wilco released their debut album A.M. and they show no signs of settling into an oldies act.

Book Review: The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Circle imagines a culture moving towards "total transparency" where everyone can be held accountable when "The Circle" is complete."  A massive social network of the near future, the visionaries at The Circle believe democracy will only work when everyone knows what everyone else is doing.  Drawing upon Orwell's 1984, Eggers refashioned the allegory for the 21st century.

The novel's protagonist Mae Holland, an ambitious twenty-four year old who scores a job at the famous tech company because her best friend Annie is part of the "Gang of 40" who run the company.  They created "TruYou" a social networking site that overthrew Facebook and Google.  "TruYou" is a catch all network where anyone can conduct business, communicate by any means, document every moment of their lives.

The "visionaries" at The Circle aim for a world where privacy is considerd immoral: parents must implant chips in their children, place cameras in their homes to prevent domestic violence, all voting will be online (oddly politicians who oppose them often end up ruined by scandal). Meanwhile, Mae rises quickly with her plucky charm and "awesome" customer service skills.

Eggers is especially scathing on the "workplace culture" of social media companies: Utopian on the surface; cultish on closer scrutiny. Employees receive every perk imaginable; their masters are always watching.

It's a totalitarianism (is the term too 20th century?) with a smiley face. As the book unfolds the Gang of 40's ambitions grow increasingly ominous, suggesting their power will know no limits.  Big Brother may return as Ronald McDonald or some trendy meme.

Eggers also takes aim at the idea everything can be quantified. The Circle believes they can reduce everyone's self-worth to a number (real life recently imitated art with August NY Times story on the Social Darwinist culture at Amazon).  Every aspect of a person's life can be rated.  I imagine Patrick McGoohan screaming at No. 2 "I AM NOT A NUMBER, I"M A FREE MAN!"

Mae makes for a weak protagonist because she never questions anything. Perhaps that's the point. She's silent when her best friend Annie is victimized by the company. She rationalizes their passive-aggressive bullying tactics, just wanting to follow orders and please her bosses. We've seen that before.

What makes novel so creepy is the idea of dissent is repugnant at The Circle: They got the algorithms to prove you wrong.

The Circle is a wicked satire in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley.

Book Review:The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski

While many books are out there on the making of Star Wars, few deal with how the story itself evolved over time.  The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski fills the gap. Kaminski synthesized a wealth of secondary sources to unravel how Lucas developed the films.

Why did Lucas decide to go ahead and write Star Wars at the height of the New Hollywood era of the 70s?

From the inception of his career Lucas dreamed of crafting an epic space adventure in the spirit of the Flash Gordon serials.  Unlike his peers in the New Hollywood of the 70s, Lucas wanted to write a story for older children that would examine universal themes. But he was hardly alone, many filmmakers in the 70s had aspirations to make a Sci-Fi epic, the most famous case being Chilean director's Alejandro Jodorowsky's plans to adapt Dune to the screen.

What literary and film influences went into the original screenplay?

Quite a few influences went into the original film.  Lucas read comic books, fairy tales, and primers on world mythology.  A devotee of Akira Kurosawa's cinema, films like The Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress were direct inspirations as well, he loved the idea of thrusting movie goers into an unfamiliar culture and forcing them to learn as they watched. Fantasy novels also shaped the story, especially J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert's Dune.  A blending of Western and Eastern spirituality are all over the original films as well.

Did Lucas write the initial script and then decide to slice it into six separate movies.

Not really, despite his statements in several interviews.  Lucas wrote four scripts from 1973-76 and Kaminski traces their evolution in meticulous detail.  While the ideas in those early drafts appeared in later films, there was hardly enough material for six movies. Each film to follow Star Wars: A New Hope were all written with no more than a rough outline. Typically Lucas would write a draft and then hand it over to another writer to polish, as in the case of the The Empire Strikes Back when he hired Leigh Bracket and later Lawrence Kasdan to work his outlines into a coherent script.

Did Lucas initially plan to make 9 films?

After Star Wars became a Box Office juggernaut, Lucas often spoke of plans to make nine films.  However, if you go back and watch Star Wars: A New Hope it pretty much works as a stand alone story.  The original opening crawl simply said Star Wars, the "Episode IV" appeared in later editions. Lucas briefly considered selling the sequel rights and going back to making low budget personal films, but got caught up in the mania surrounding Star Wars and decided to make the sequels.  By the time The Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 he was exhausted and went into temporary retirement, thus putting Star Wars on the shelf for over a decade. When Lucas returned to make the prequels (Episodes 1,2,3) in the 1990s he dismissed the idea of a sequel trilogy (Episodes 7,8,9), although Kaminski claims at one time Lucas probably did have nine films in mind.*

So there was no master plan, the entire saga was written on the fly?

For the most part. For example Darth Vader, who appears as a henchman for the Empire in A New Hope, gradually evolved into the central character of the saga.  When it came time to write The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas realized the film needed a stronger ending so he decided to make Darth Vader the father of Luke Skywalker, although this was never part of the original story.  The same goes for the controversial decision to make Luke and Leia brother and sister.


Why has Lucas made so many contradicting statements over the years?

Up until the 70s, the idea of telling a singular story through many films went against Hollywood convention.  Francis Ford Coppola's  The Godfather Part II changed the rules, proving audiences were open to the idea of one story being told through multiple movies. Kaminski gets very critical towards Lucas because of his contradicting statements over the years, but they should be taken in their proper context - in the 70s sequels were a relatively new innovation.  Unlike today when Marvel plans 10-15 years into the future to make their films, Lucas literally had to put everything on the line with each new Star Wars film since he was working in a completely different business model, basically financing the films on his own while over seeing all aspects of production.  

What can we expect in the the new trilogy?

All speculation at this point.  To paraphrase what Lucas once said: the first trilogy would deal with the rise and fall of empires, the next would focus on the journey from childhood to adulthood, and the last would focus on questions of good and evil. But with Disney taking over I suspect the new films will emphasize action and will have a "changing of the guard" type narrative.

Is the book worth reading?

For Star Wars fans it's a must read, especially on the making of the original trilogy. It's by far the most comprehensive source.  Kaminski's tone can get annoying at times, at one point attributing Lucas's success to sheer luck.  He should remember Obi-Wan's dictum "in my experience, there's no such thing as luck."  So if you can get past the nit picking, The Secret History of Star Wars provides a wealth of knowledge on the creative process itself.

*One of the crucial clues to the mystery of the "sequel" trilogy occurs in The Empire Strikes Back.  Luke, after abandoning his Jedi training with Yoda in order to rescue Han and Leia from Darth Vader, has Obi Wan sadly uttering to Yoda "That boy is our last hope," to which Yoda replies, "No, there is another."  While the next film Return of the Jedi reveals this "Other" as Princess Leia,  Kaminski suggests this "other" Yoda spoke of may have been a totally new character to be introduced in later films.


Kaminski, Michael.  The Secret History of Star Wars: The Art of Storytelling and the Making of a Modern Epic.  Toronto: Legacy Books, 2008.

Book Review: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, published in 1985, delivered a harsh critique of television and its negative effects on culture. Postman's thesis comes down to a basic premise: a civilization based on print communication will foster critical and analytical thinking, while TV trivializes everything.

Postman frequently notes George Orwell and Aldous Huxley's opposing visions of a dystopian society.  In 1984 Orwell imagined oppressive governments banning books and keeping citizens under constant surveillance.  Huxley's Brave New World envisioned a future with a population kept at bay through drugs and endless entertainments.  Why ban books when no one cares to read them?  Although Orwell's often invoked these days, Brave New World seems more prescient. 

Amusing Ourselves to Death goes to great lengths to establish differences between TV and print, whether it be news, political, or religious programming. TV will always favor entertainment above all else.  An example being the presidential debates: they are rarely critiqued in terms of how the candidate argues their points, but rather on who scores the most zingers or flubs the most lines. Entertaining content always trumps thought provoking content.

In the past 30 years since Amusing Ourselves to Death was written TV has changed and yet stayed the same. Critics often speak of a new "Golden Age" of television when writing about cable dramas like Mad Men and Breaking Bad.  But dramas have always occupied a high place in television and while they are getting more sophisticated - television remains mostly junk! From reality TV to Cable News, there's enough mindless babble to keep anyone hypnotized for hours.

Postman offered a few solutions to offsetting television, but the book is mostly a lamentation. There's a quiet eloquence to it. One can see the influence of Postman's thesis in writings to come later, David Foster Wallace especially comes to mind.  The literature of the future will no doubt confront and attempt to make sense of the post-print world Postman predicted.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in books. I teach freshman composition and I can say students do place some value on literature, but it's not a major part of their lives.  Walk around any college campus and you will rarely see undergrads immersed in On the Road or The Bell Jar. More likely they are in the middle of a Netflix binge

The generation born after 1995 (anyone under 21) are at ease with digital technology and they are building their own reality around it. Whatever happens, it will be a brave new world.  

That was me from 2015, here's some thoughts 10 years later: After the 2024 election I noticed Postman was  once again being referenced a lot on social media, a slew of viral You Tube videos talked about their mind being blown by Amusing Ourselves to Death. To be honest, I always found Postman a bit too priggish and pedantic for my taste. There was something neo-reactionary in his incessant criticisms of television. In his book The Disappearance of Childhood he praises American Evangelicals and the home school movement. I found that telling, a longing for a Victorian world of high morals and muscular Christianity. But he wasn't necessarily wrong either. Our phones now shape our sense of reality. Everyone distrusts the media (except the outlets who align with their ideology). I could go on, the issue's been written about to death at this point.