EPISODE 707: HAVING MASS ON THE ENTEPRISE

Losing an Hour<Losing More Hours Tweeting About Losing An Hour

Mar 14, 2022

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

Welcome to Daylight Savings Time, otherwise known as the day I might as well just not go to bed because I just spend all night waking up worrying about whether my clock is going to make the change and wake me up in time to say Mass, and then that night I forget to post the newsletter even though it’s done.

It’s really the dumbest possible way of entering into spring. “Hey, you know that wonderful thing you’ve spent six months waiting for? Well here it is, but introduced like you just got jumped outside an AMC after seeing Batman.”

(Still haven’t seen Batman. Desire and reality are so often not good friends.)

What is the point of Daylight Savings Time anyway? We want more light in the evening instead of the morning why exactly? IT’S EVENING. SORRY, IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE DARK.

Also hey, if we’d just be patient for a month it’ll be lighter in the evening too, because that’s how the movement and rotation of our planet works.

(Cut to: Me stopping to try and figure out why the amount of sunlight we get changes over the course of the year. Turns out it’s because the Earth’s axis is tilted something like 23 degrees vis a vis the sun. In the Northern Hemisphere that’s 23 degrees away from the sun in the fall and winter months, toward the sun in the others.

Cut to: Me enjoying the realization that the planet Earth itself is not straight. Take that, Florida and Texas.)

Basically Daylight Savings Time is like a romantic comedy movie idea that has been forced upon all of us as a way of life without the decency of requiring either a satisfying meet cute or a happy ending.

Not a fan. Zero stars. Do not recommend.

Matt Laughery @mattlaughery

The world needs a Patronus to protect us from JK Rowling

There’s a lot going on in the world, and in our country today. Texas’ law to maybe arrest parents of trans kids has been suspended. Which is good. But it’s just one of many laws out there or being considered to punish people who are trans.

I’m sure there are many people out there who are thinking, while I’m relieved that the Texas law has been halted for now, I’m not totally confident that we’ve figured out all the things we need to as a society on transitioning, like when it’s a good thing and how it should be done. And I want to believe much of that comes from a place of care.

But it also comes from a place of ignorance. Actually it’s pretty similar to the way American society deals with Native people and reservations. Many people have their own opinion on rez life—trust me, I used to hear them all the time when I worked on the Pine Ridge. But almost no one actually takes the time to talk to Indian people.

Meanwhile, Florida has passed a law that prohibits conversation about homosexuality in their schools. They say it’s just a rule to protect young kids—as though there aren’t sufficient laws already in place to protect children from inappropriate sexual situations and conversations. But most people fear that certain clauses of the bill will allow these “protections” to extend to every public school. Which means that every school, district or legislative area will probably be different, and maybe every teacher as well.

It’s a terrible bill. It’s hard to believe that it won’t get knocked down by the courts.

But the thing that really troubles me in the meantime that until Friday, when he realized his own people were in revolt, Disney’s new president Bob Chapek has said that Disney would continue to support the politicians who created the legislation. This was a big change from former president Bob Iger, who was very vocal in his support for queer people. (As he should be: Disney is filled with queer employees and is strongly supported by the queer community.)

Chapek, who wrote a letter about how he has listened to queer people and what he heard will change his life forever but also this is the way it is—my kingdom for an end to condescending institutional leadership—said that Disney will let its inspiring content speak for itself.

Which sounds great, right? Did you see Encanto? SO GOOD, right? And remember that great queer storyline in it?

…

Okay, but in the Pixar films? What’s that? Disney has systematically removed every moment of queer relationship ever written into any Pixar movie?

Well, at least there’s Star Wars and Marvel. With all the characters in those universes, they must have TONS of queer relationships, yes?

No. And that’s the real deal here: Disney may produce lots of inspiring content, may trumpet its dedication to being truly representative of the world we live in, but so far it has refused to include queer people under that umbrella. Which is not only not inspiring, it teaches queer people one of three things: they don’t exist; their identities don’t belong out in the open; or their identities are somehow by their nature inappropriate for children. (Ask a young person what they think of that and watch them roll their eyes. We who are older are fighting battles that have already long since been decided.)

And it’s not just that Disney doesn’t produce queer stories, either It also erases those that seem present. After Force Awakens saw two of its main male characters have too much chemistry, the second and third film made sure that they were always connected to female characters—Finn to Rose in Last Jedi and then Rey in Rise of Skywalker, Poe to Leia and then to Zorii (remember her?) and Rey. (If you ever want a laugh, go back to the scene where Poe, Rey and Finn get together in Skywalker. The sexual chemistry among all three is ridiculous; and the three actors all seem totally confused about how Disney wants them to handle that.)

Personally I think Chapek’s move is a disaster for his career at Disney. But based on the content they produce, maybe I’m wrong!

Longtime hero/friend of the newsletter and my life, futurist Chris Kent, wrote me last week to point out the trailer for the new Star Trek show Strange New Worlds, which spins off from Discovery with the story of the Enterprise before Kirk, has a CRAZY Catholic twist to it.

See if you can find it:

Yep, that’s right, the end of the trailer has first a cut out and then the actual Enterprise held up in exactly the manner that the Eucharist is held at the consecration.

I’m not sure what to do with that. I’m not sure we’ve ever had Earth religions factor into the show in an explicit way. I assume that will still be true here. Creator Gene Roddenberry was himself a humanist.

But the Enterprise is a tool for a kind of evangelization; it’s sent “to seek out new civilizations,” just like a missionary, and its endgame is always to bring more planets into the Federation. And there is something more here that resonates, the Enterprise as something being offered to the universe and ideally providing a form of blessing, rescue or nourishment.

I don’t much like it when religious people say “Actually this thing you love believes what I believe.” I think that’s reductive and also kind of rude.

But that trailer definitely has stuff GOING ON.

Along the same lines: Have you seen the poster for the Obi-Wan miniseries? Take a look.

Obi-Wan in a desert, with no landmarks to guide him. The clouds behind him suggest both the darkness of the universe post-Revenge of the Sith and also maybe the possibility of hope, the suns of Tatooine mostly peering through.

Here’s the thing I notice: it has some really interesting similarities and differences with the poster for The Phantom Menace, which began the prequel trilogy.

Young Anakin is walking toward us, just like Obi-Wan. And they’re both walking in a desert.

But whereas Ani is just entering the desert—we’ve got that building just behind him—Obi-Wan has clearly been here a long while, just as he’s been in this nightmare universe for a long time now.

The other thing I love is, Menace has the shadow of Vader looming behind him. That’s the phantom menace. (I mean, yes, it’s Palpatine, but for our heroes, the more personal menace is what’s going to happen to Ani.)

There’s no sign of Vader in the Obi-Wan poster, but nevertheless he hangs over everything about that show. He’s Obi-Wan’s biggest loss and also his biggest threat. The premise of the show seems to be Sith-adjacent bad guys hunting the remaining Jedi. And Vader himself is going to appear.

But even though Obi-Wan too is being hunted, we don’t see Vader’s shadow behind him. And I love that. Because Vader doesn’t lie behind Obi-Wan, not really. He lies before him, on the Death Star, waiting to kill him. Obi-Wan is now walking toward that confrontation.

And the suns of Tatooine behind him are not just an abstract image of hope but a representation of Luke, the character we so fully identify with them. This is the story of Obi-Wan standing between Luke being found out and the Empire. Maybe it’ll even be the story of Obi-Wan standing between the Empire and Luke and Leia, which would give the two suns an even deeper layer.

Here’s the trailer. It dropped this week.