As you trek to the polls today....

Thank the (Vulcan) gods for the Internet.

(And if you ask me for realz, of course, I'll give you my opinion.)

After a year: Nimoy fan/patron Bonnie Moss reflects

It's amazing how the one-year anniversary of Leonard Nimoy's passing stirred up again so many feelings for fans around the world and especially online. We remember how news of his passing melted down the Internet for a weekend, and was a wake-up call that his appeal had gone mainstream because Trek and its ideals had gone mainstream.

So it was an echo, a major echo, that we felt as Feb. 27 passed this year. So many felt compelled to share their feelings online, to marvel at how it had been a year already and still they felt the loss. By a quirk of timing, we even got his visage as the final frame of the 2016 Oscars "In Memorial" reel.

I helped my friend, The Con of Wrath survivor/donor and lifelong Leonard fan/patron Bonnie Moss, to share her memories of Leonard on several podcasts and interviews at the time (at right, with LN)—especially after the North Carolina gallery show of his work she helped curate, that went on just after his death. 

And then last weekend, as the timing led us to revisit those feelings for many of us, Bonnie shared an email with her friends about that one-year anniversary... and she gave me permission to share it with Trekland:

This Year Was Different:
(Bonnie Moss)

It's hard to comprehend it has been 12 months since losing one of the most beloved actors and individuals of our generation, Leonard Nimoy.  A year without his tweets making insightful and timely comments on today's world events. A year without hearing more commentary on his prior work, his profession in general or his current passions. A year without that still melodic voice, handsome visage and genuine affection for fans, expressed in new and future manifestations. We miss you. Daily.

I also give thanks that we were able to share part of those 83 years with you. Leonard Nimoy was a man of true diversity in his gifts and talents, who also admired and represented the broader diversity on this planet and beyond. He continued to challenge himself, he learned from his mistakes and he stayed true to his core values.

He loved his wife and family-even the challenges of blending two entities into one appear to have been met and he would be SO moved and proud by the ongoing respect and affection still in evidence among his loved ones. Thank-you, Susan Nimoy, for your efforts in this and for your impact on Leonard's health. You gave us more years with him than we might not have had otherwise.

Leonard would have loved celebrating Star Trek's 50th this year. He was looking forward to it. He certainly would have found a way to be part of it, by skype, social media or through another creative conduit, given his health limitations. Instead, we will honor and treasure his memory. The two upcoming documentaries currently in production through his two children, Julie and Adam, will be an important part of this acknowledgement.

On a personal note- thanks, Leonard, for 35 years of great performances and personal kindnesses. From our first meeting: "Why are you in the rain? Come on (backstage)--you'll get wet!"  To our last: "So good to see you again."

Thank-you for taking care of us. It was good to see you too…

                                     

                            Both photos courtesy Bonnie White: Below, at a 1979

                            performance of Vincent.

Thoughts on June 11: Spock again illuminates McCoy

Or, rather, Leonard Nimoy illuminates DeForest Kelley.

It seems here in the Blog Age I've settled into a tradition each year of celebrating De's life career on his Jan. 20 birthday ... and using the anniversary of his passing on June 11, 1999—today—to reflect on what he's meant to me, to fandom, and to the world. Nothing radical there.


But I look back at my Trekland posts on the major markers of his death—the tenth anniversary, and then the fifteenth—and realize that, like all history and anything connected with the non-Prophets' linear existence, the passing years only shed more light, more texture and more nuance on what it is we already know.

So it was this year with Leonard Nimoy's own passing Feb. 27, and how I caught my own thoughts and reaction, upon hearing the news, first shifting to 6/11/99 and De—and then comparing and contrasting the two, and reflecting on first fandom and then our culture's reaction and modes of today... as I wrote about for Star Trek Magazine just a few days later for the rushed first edition after Leonard's passing. Very proud of that piece, as once again sometimes the simplest writing turns into my favorite.

Come to think of it, it's where my thoughts went when we lost Majel in 2008, and even grand old producer A.C. Lyles a year back. With Gene so long gone, De continues to be my adult anchor and reference point to all Trek, it seems. Hmmmmm.

One thing that has not changed, in fact perhaps accelerated by Leonard's passing, is the ongoing stampede of fans and appreciators of De's role of McCoy and his humble, understated performance overall. What I wrote about that explosion last year, sparked by finding my first Trek T-shirts (above), has not only mushroomed, but the awareness of it as well — especially among younger fans who can take their 24/7 remastered streaming fandom and see it all for themselves, much quicker, and go online and spread it further.

When I finally shed a professional veneer during our last interview and confessed to De that he and McCoy were both my favorites, he laughingly cracked a great retort: "Well, where were you in the 60s when I coulda used you up, against Bill and Leonard?" I've told that story more than once, but it occurs to me now: I think he'd love to shoot it back at all his new fans today, as well...and be just as appreciative.

On losing Leonard: the first social mourning in Trek

I know it has been about seven weeks since Leonard Nimoy finally lost out in his battle with COPD.  On the 11th hour at deadline, official Star Trek Magazine held up a few days to include mention of his passing—and turned to me to do so. 

Very honored to do that, and very proud of the piece… especially from the angle of how, in 2015, we all experienced the moment and insight together: a real paradigm change, brought home by this central nexus in so many lives. And had we taken Spock for granted all these years?


STM's Issue 56 for Summer will be a full-on tribute issue in a few weeks, but Issue 55 for Spring is on newsstands now, with Spock on the cover of course... and this is how it opens:

Just one segment of the layout:

UK peeps–catch EIS and me via Skype at FCD next week

Hey, if Leonard Nimoy can do it, why can't I?  

I'm talking about my first-ever convention appearance by Skype video!— at next weekend's First Contact Day con in the U.K. at Space Center Leicester, chiefly to talk about Enterprise in Space. I will always be grateful to have seen Nimoy make history with his first Skye appearance at Away Mission Tampa only just a year ago, a nod to his declining health (see photo below)—but promoter Wil Ross at FCD used the same tactic to overcome startup budgets and "have" me this year after all.

Leoanrd at his first Skype appearance

Not only that, but this is amazing: Wil, co-promoter David Limburg and everyone at FCD fell in love with the idea of Enterprise in Space, and really wanted me there to talk about it for UK fans—but late in the game, budgets were just not there for  live trip...and thus the Skype idea. Brilliant!

The convention, of course, is pinned to the day in 2161 when Zephram Cochrane will make his first experimental warp flight, and break the light barrier. And attract passing Vulcans who initiate humanity's First Contact. Of course.

But the FCD guys are so committed to our non-profit crowdfunded mission—an homage to positive future science fiction and fact that puts 100+ student projects into orbit in 2019—that they have committed volunteers to crew a booth all weekend for EIS and take crew sign-ups and offer info.

What's more, print-on-demand vendor Fantasia Memorabilia is also boosting EIS (and sponsoring National Space Society) by donating as well all the proceeds from site-printed EIS T-shirts, mugs, caps, etc,  that weekend. Wow!

This has to be unprecedented—a convention providing staffing and a vendor donating some sales profits in a commitment to help a non-profit project that otherwise is not even on-site—at least, live.

So come on, Britfolk—get your butts there this weekend (only 20-some tickets still available, try online special) and talk to Amy & company at the EIS booth, all weekend.  And then show your status after you sign up for virtual crew membership  by getting some EIS gear—on sale there, before it is here!—that thanks to Wendy at Fantasia Memorabilia will also benefit EIS, a 501c3 non-profit for any Yanks there. It won't be deductible to the UK fans, of course, but hey— it's always good to mention.

See you from the big screen in Leicester, gang! And thank all the folk there who are making this a truly unique moment for conventions' charitable instincts and logistics. 

If this Skype thing catches on, then hey…. well, still not as personable as rubbing elbows and groaning puns in person, but it has its moments…especially of restart-ups and wayfarawayers.

Family wishes for Leonard memorial gift donations

Not mine, but forwarded to me—Marietta, near Atlanta, GA

Since Friday, life for me has been an overwhelming mix of feeling and fielding. 

I have tried to share my reflections on Leonard Nimoy in media everywhere —Twitter, Facebook, podcasts like a special The Ready Room, television like Sky News in UK/Europe, radio (Boston's WXTK) — everywhere, except right here on my own blog. 

But it's coming.

Meanwhile, in a telling way, you know where my head was from my very first tweet:

And many more followed.


For now, let me share the family's wishes for those wanting to make donations or memorial gifts in Leonard's name:

Everychild Foundation
PO Box 1808
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

COPD Foundation
20F Street NW, Suite 200-A
Washington, DC 20001 

Beit T'Shuvah Treatment Center
8831 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034 

Bay-Nimoy Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel of Hollywood
7300 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

RIP, Leonard Nimoy: So many talents—but Spock's #1

FInal Vegas Khhaaan Trek convention appearance, August 2011

STV: Happy 45th, Star Trek—your gift: a rare video of your 20th!

So yes, to finish up your annual dilitihium-powered birthday candles: Happy Birthday, Star Trek! Although, as I always say, never forget we're merely marking the first airdate, not the pilot conception or even filming of "The Cage" over two years earlier. In fact, It's a good time to celebrate with a look back at Star Trek's SECOND-most important year...

I'm talking about 1986, When Everything Changed. Thanks to Star Trek IV having such early buzz (later fulfilled in acclaim and box office alike) ... which helped answer the ongoing clamor of local stations for "more Star Trek"  with the bold move to finally make a TV spinoff (what became The Next Generation, of course). With all that, someone figured out it might be time to finally mark the anniversary with an "official" blowout. And even a logo!

Thus, herewith we present—"fresh" from some old VHS tape from some dealer at some con back in the mists of time (and thus, apologies for its quality)—a very rare glimpse of the 20th anniversary Star Trek bash at the studio on Sept. 8, 1986. In context, the announcement of TNG was still a month away, while just five years and a month later Gene Roddenberry himself would be gone, after a series of strokes.

Still, the vindication in his voice here is palatable...