I work for Ambassador Mollari. After a while, nothing bothers you
I am not talking much about politics at the moment, not because I don't know the rising number of people confirmed dead in Grenfell Tower at the price of £2 per square meter or that the murderer of Philando Castile walked free because it is more important than justice that a white man should be able to shoot whatever scares him or any of the other appalling, routine betrayals of a society's vulnerable by those with more power in it, but because I am not doing so great at the moment and I don't know what I could contribute other than being upset. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
truepenny has a list of reasons against Trump and it is worth reading and keeping, because this is still not normal.
I just checked in with the internet and saw that Stephen Furst has died. Pace the New York Times, I never saw him in Animal House (1978) and I don't know that I'm ever going to. But I loved him as Vir Cotto on Babylon 5 (1993–98), second only to Peter Jurasik's Londo Mollari and Claudia Christian's Susan Ivanova and the eventual Regent of Centauri Prime played by Damian London, none of whom had better go anywhere in the near future, damn it. The Centauri characters were overwhelmingly my favorites. They had the morally messiest arcs and besides, I came to Babylon 5 right off Robert Graves' I, Claudius (1937) and its 1976 BBC adaptation; I never had a chance. When my high school's concert choir went to England and France for a week and a half in the spring of 1999, I evaluated Versailles in terms of Centauri Prime. Actual Centauri Prime, I am pretty sure, was mostly a matter of CGI reflecting pools and a lot of draperies on the walls, but I believed in its fabulous age and decadence and post-imperial resentment and it provided me with political lines I still quote literally, as in earlier this afternoon, to this day. "Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots fights a war on twelve." "Arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you." And Vir, in the face of Londo's nationalist nostalgia, saying something that is by no means less relevant now than it was twenty-two years ago: "Every generation of Centauri mourns for the golden days when their power was like unto the gods! It's counterproductive! I mean, why make history if you fail to learn by it?" He was the kind of character I loved around the edges of stories, accidentally backing into the center of the narrative this time and then going nervously but resolutely forward when he realized where he was, a nebbish with—somewhat to his own surprise—a spine. A good person, which did not mean an uncomplicated one. Very funny, which the character as much as the actor seemed to have developed in self-defense. Not biologically equipped to handle fast food, which I could really sympathize with. I feel he would be unsurprised if amused to see that, unless they've fixed it by now, the Times obituary spelled his name wrong. It got Furst's right, fortunately, which I recognize is the important thing here. But I never saw him as anyone but Vir and it's hard not to feel that's who we've lost.
Ave atque vale.
truepenny has a list of reasons against Trump and it is worth reading and keeping, because this is still not normal.I just checked in with the internet and saw that Stephen Furst has died. Pace the New York Times, I never saw him in Animal House (1978) and I don't know that I'm ever going to. But I loved him as Vir Cotto on Babylon 5 (1993–98), second only to Peter Jurasik's Londo Mollari and Claudia Christian's Susan Ivanova and the eventual Regent of Centauri Prime played by Damian London, none of whom had better go anywhere in the near future, damn it. The Centauri characters were overwhelmingly my favorites. They had the morally messiest arcs and besides, I came to Babylon 5 right off Robert Graves' I, Claudius (1937) and its 1976 BBC adaptation; I never had a chance. When my high school's concert choir went to England and France for a week and a half in the spring of 1999, I evaluated Versailles in terms of Centauri Prime. Actual Centauri Prime, I am pretty sure, was mostly a matter of CGI reflecting pools and a lot of draperies on the walls, but I believed in its fabulous age and decadence and post-imperial resentment and it provided me with political lines I still quote literally, as in earlier this afternoon, to this day. "Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots fights a war on twelve." "Arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you." And Vir, in the face of Londo's nationalist nostalgia, saying something that is by no means less relevant now than it was twenty-two years ago: "Every generation of Centauri mourns for the golden days when their power was like unto the gods! It's counterproductive! I mean, why make history if you fail to learn by it?" He was the kind of character I loved around the edges of stories, accidentally backing into the center of the narrative this time and then going nervously but resolutely forward when he realized where he was, a nebbish with—somewhat to his own surprise—a spine. A good person, which did not mean an uncomplicated one. Very funny, which the character as much as the actor seemed to have developed in self-defense. Not biologically equipped to handle fast food, which I could really sympathize with. I feel he would be unsurprised if amused to see that, unless they've fixed it by now, the Times obituary spelled his name wrong. It got Furst's right, fortunately, which I recognize is the important thing here. But I never saw him as anyone but Vir and it's hard not to feel that's who we've lost.
Ave atque vale.
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Nine
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*hugs*
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It didn't make it into the post, but one of the things I was thinking was that Vir is the kind of character who is often assigned a romance to demonstrate how far he's come as a person, but no, Lyndisty is his one canonical romance on the show and it doesn't work out because she's a Nazi and he demonstrates how far he's come as a person mostly by making difficult decisions, although there is also that one time he grabs a coutari off Londo's wall and goes to town on the Drazi who bugged their quarters in the middle of the Zocalo, which I remember being very satisfying. [edit] Yeah, even in low-res YouTube, that scene is still pretty epic.
He was one of many great parts of B5, and the show absolutely wouldn't have worked half so well without him--Londo wouldn't have, either. Ugh, a real loss.
Yes.
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Some kind of memorial rewatch is clearly in order.
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Yeah.
-- I remember Furst having diabetes-related health trouble as far back as S4 of Babylon 5, so his making it to his early sixties is good on the one hand, but of course that time was much too short, too.
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*hugs*
-- I remember Furst having diabetes-related health trouble as far back as S4 of Babylon 5
He almost lost a foot and instead lost a striking amount of weight between Seasons 3 and 4 as part of getting the diabetes under control—I remember looking for news at the time because I was worried the sudden weight loss meant he was really ill. (I have no idea which site reassured me. Maybe the Lurker's Guide? Wikipedia in 1996 was not a thing.)
so his making it to his early sixties is good on the one hand, but of course that time was much too short, too.
And a space rock has not yet fallen on Netanyahu and our present administration prospers. Why does anyone ever believe the universe is a just place?
[edit] In general, for almost every death of an artist or an intellectual or a scientist or just an interesting, decent person who did not make the world a worse place, you can quote H.D.'s "R.A.F." until you're sick:
"for I am stricken
as never before,
by the thought
of ineptitude, sloth, evil
that prosper,
while such as he fall."
Which goes back to the first part of my post, I guess.
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you can quote H.D.'s "R.A.F." until you're sick
That really totally fucking sums it up, yeah.
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After which JMS named the EAS Hyperion!
It's really something when the creator of the show goes "Yeah, I used that to check canon."
I did not watch a lot of TV growing up. Mostly it was the Children's Television Workshop and unpredictable exposure to mainstream sitcoms and kids' shows at friends' houses, which was almost universally surreal. (On the bright side, everything about The Mysterious Cities of Gold and TaleSpin was amazing in hindsight and the one episode I can remember of The Real Ghostbusters turned out to have written by J. Michael Straczynski—"Ragnarok and Roll"—so it wasn't all bad, but what in the hell was going on with the Gummi Bears?) My knowledge of pop culture widened marginally as I moved into high school, so I can talk about My So-Called Life because I had friends who followed it and occasionally we would watch episodes together, but Babylon 5 was really the first TV show I chose to follow. Which I then did, unsurprisingly, near-religiously. Before the flood in my parents' basement, we had a substantial percentage of the show on taped-off-the-TV VHS, because the airing times were such that I was not consistently home to watch it live and I never missed an episode. (Seriously, I didn't. I was missing most of Season 1 until it re-ran in the gap between Seasons 4 and 5, but after "The Quality of Mercy," I was onboard.* Which is kind of ridiculous, since that is primarily the episode in which Londo cheats at poker using his junk, but here we are.) And because it was my first experience of what I did not yet understand was a fandom, it did not strike me as even remotely strange to have JMS show up in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated and be regularly quoted on the Lurker's Guide; I just figured that was TV.
That really totally fucking sums it up, yeah.
If desired, *hugs*
* The first episode I saw was "Believers," which was an arresting introduction to the difference between the moral universes of Star Trek and Babylon 5; I also believe I saw "Eyes" pretty early on, because I imprinted on one-shot Harriman Gray, who I just realized Matheson in Crusade is kind of a revisiting of. I believe I caught up on all the Sinclair-arc material in hindsight and almost certainly "Signs and Portents" ditto. In the Beginning aired right around the same time, so my memory of how I acquired an understanding of the show's internal timeline is kind of confused.
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I like that and I think you're right.
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Oh yeah, did you know Beardsley illustrated Morte d'Arthur? https://www.amazon.com/Morte-dArthur-Knights-Knickerbocker-Classics/dp/163106326X/
https://www.amazon.com/Morte-DArthur-Thomas-Malory/dp/051747977X
I have just the cheap Dover edition that reprints "most" of the illos, now I'm lusting after these.
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(and I love your choice of picture!)
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I really would have thought that Babylon 5 was enough of a phenomenon—it ushered in the age of long-form TV as we know it—to rate a prominent mention in the obituaries. The Times is still misspelling Vir's family name.
I loved Vir, who was the perfect foil (and friend) for Londo. Dammit.
Amen!
(and I love your choice of picture!)
(Thank you. It was the first moment I thought of.)
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That's wonderful.
Thank you for the link!
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Vir, to Morden. "What do I want? I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this." {waves}
Speaking of confronting agents of the Shadows, has anything checked whether Trump makes more sense if you get that thing on top of his head blind drunk?
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I'm not asking for an end to death or anything, because I've read all those folktales and I know it never works out, but could we maybe get a break on all these beloved people? Who were still, you know, doing things with their lives?
"What do I want? I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this." {waves}
For the ages.
Speaking of confronting agents of the Shadows, has anything checked whether Trump makes more sense if you get that thing on top of his head blind drunk?
Maybe that's why he doesn't drink!
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"Don't you have somewhere to go?"
"Me? No, not really."
"I thought your ship was leaving soon for Minbar."
"Oh, no, that's tomorrow. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow. Oh." (awkward pause) "'One of you will become Emperor, after the other dies.' Nonsense."
"Of course!" (son of awkward pause) "I've made some dinner."
"I'm not hungry."
"You're not saying that you don't trust me anymore, Londo? I made your favorite spoo."
(mother of awkward pauses)
"I'll order in."
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I do not see how it could hurt.
*hugs for you, too*
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That's good to know. Frat house comedy is generally not a thing that looks like it will be interesting to me even if it's culturally acclaimed, so, see above, have never seen it. (I grew up on John Belushi as one half of the Blues Brothers, which has definitely been visited by the could-treat-its-women-better fairy, but on a musical and Nazi-punching level is immortal.) Let me know if you decide to try a rewatch, I guess?
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I grew upon Animal House but I'm a little afraid to revisit it now, I remember Donald Sutherland as a predatory prof or something. But OTOH, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?"
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It is quite possibly the most feel-good destructive movie I know. I believe it held the record for most cars destroyed in a chase scene until the 2000 sequel outdid its original by one, but who cares about the sequel anyway.
But OTOH, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?"
Even out of context, that is a good line.
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That would be it!
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*hugs* then, if desired.
It's made reading the obits pretty strange. It's like if Paul McCartney died and people mostly talked about his marriage to Heather Mills, or if a Peter Cushing obit barely mentioned Hammer Horror and Star Wars.
Yes! They all feel the wrong way round to me. I genuinely thought Babylon 5 was a better-known piece of television than that.
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I don't know who else auditioned for the role and I don't care. He was the part.
That's a good icon.