Whirligig World

[Muffit]

This carousel world of ours is so much like a child’s merry-go-round. As we ride up and down and round and round, the nameless blur of faces that go by barely register before they are gone. And we in urgent fervor, transfixed by ephemeral goals of inanimate brass rings, let these people go in and out of our lives like wisps of clouds on a blustery day.

I had a friend when I was only a teenager, someone who entered my life as big and dynamic as a crack of thunder, but who is now only a memory, in a folder in a file in a warehouse as labyrinthine as any leaf-hedged maze. He was huge and imposing; six foot something and very heavyset. His booming voice personified his character, a person you definitely noticed when he entered a room. And one more thing – he was black and I was not.

As unlikely a pair as we were, we became fast friends, and spent much time together at a camp meeting, itself a fantasy of sorts in a world of emotionless reality. We talked and shared a faith, and time’s inexorable hands seemed to slow to a stop, like walking waist deep in a thick ocean wave. We must’ve seemed quite the pair, him so tall and huge and me so short and thin. But life does not stand still for the dim gray diary we carry around, and soon it was time to say goodbye.

Time passed, as time does, and one day I heard a knock at the door. To my amazement, there he was, having driven many long hours to see me. I was elated, but that elation was quickly to wane as things began to go wrong. My family and neighbors peeked from behind corners, and hid behind whispers. For you see, as open as they all meant to be, there were few if any of my friend’s race in our little town. And I knew that he noticed. More oddly, he seemed prepossessed with all things black this day, scanning our TV for black church services (it was Sunday), and rummaging through our vinyl records for the same. His often-combed afro garnered much unwanted attention as well. The day fell into melancholy, and as we said our goodbyes outside in his car I learned he held much pain inside, from others of my race who at that dark time were anything but kind. Sadly, I never saw him again.

Was 1978 so special a time, that parents and children could share an hour’s vision, that deep camaraderie between Apollo and Starbuck were still welcome, and faith so evident in Adama’s eyes an aspiration for us all? Was it a camp meeting never returned to, where in that fantasy alone I could call someone friend, ere the dream roughly wakened spilled like life’s last ambrosia? Why does time and place dictate what is acceptable, and make you and I sudden opposites of a BSG coin, when our friendship should hurdle the new and the old?

You are my friends as I am yours, though in December’s cold light our differences are now illumed. You know I love the old as I know you love the new. But your morning finds the dream tangible while mine quests only in darkened repose. I lost my BSG as I lost my friend. Won’t you join with me in hoping that I will see one of them again, my longing reborn on the public expansive screen, where popcorn is still shared by family and friends? After all, an aisle should never be an isle…

Affectionately and respectfully,
Muffit

[Dawg]

Muffit, you never disappoint me!



I am
Dawg

I can see from your post your feeling of loss. I think you need to look at things another way. Your old friend (TOS) is still the young beautiful person you knew in your youth. Your friend never ages (although we do) and is there any day if you want to visit.

Your friend has a cousin who you never met but yet when he came to visit this December you saw someone who was similar yet somehow different. Some of us gave him a welcome because he was related to our old friend. Some of us heard bad things about him and never opened the door. Those of us who met him judged him on his own merits. Some of us didn't recognize a new friend in him and sent him on his way at the end of the visit. Others found him refreshing and fun in his own right. We took his number and invited him back. Hopefully for those of us who enjoyed his company we will meet him again.

[Muffit]

Hi Dawg, and thank you!

Hi Antelope! Thank you for reading and for sharing your thoughts (good thoughts too ). I am happy that those of you who wanted the mini to satisfy were not disappointed. Am just hoping the same can happen for a continuation (on the big screen), so that folks like me can be happy too. Wouldn't it be great if everyone could receive their desired version? That would be the best of both worlds...

Thank you both for reading and for your kind replies .

[shiningstar]

WHat an excellent post Muffit.
Like Dawg said .......You never dissappoint us.

[Muffit]

Thanks so much Shiningstar! I'm so happy to have kind friends like you

[bsg1fan1975]

For those that liked the mini I'm glad you did!

For those of us still waiting for a continuation, I am with you!

In this day and age where its everyone for themselves, let us remember that not everyone is satisified. We all have different wants and needs. Just because you may like something doesn't mean that the next person will.

For all here who are my friends thank you. I truly hope and wish you get what you want and need!

[Muffit]

Thanks for your comments Bsg1Fan!

[Corwwyn]

Great post Muffit!

Originally posted by antelope526
]I can see from your post your feeling of loss. I think you need to look at things another way. Your old friend (TOS) is still the young beautiful person you knew in your youth. Your friend never ages (although we do) and is there any day if you want to visit.

Your friend has a cousin who you never met but yet when he came to visit this December you saw someone who was similar yet somehow different. Some of us gave him a welcome because he was related to our old friend. Some of us heard bad things about him and never opened the door. Those of us who met him judged him on his own merits. Some of us didn't recognize a new friend in him and sent him on his way at the end of the visit. Others found him refreshing and fun in his own right. We took his number and invited him back. Hopefully for those of us who enjoyed his company we will meet him again.

Antelope, I think your proposed analogy is dramatically askew.

I see G2003 in the context of Muffit's poetry more like this:

Someone came to visit this December who had usurped your friend's identity. He used your friend's name, but the picture on his licence was not your friend. Some of us gave him a welcome for, ahem, various reasons. Some of us judged him on his own merits and either welcomed him or slammed the door in his face. Some of us recognized him as an imposter and never opened our door to him. Others found him refreshing and fun (in a morbid way?) in his own right and disregarded his indiscrections. They took his number and invited him back. And some of them have tried there hardest to prevent your friend from ever seeing the light of day to come forth and reclaim his self.

I ask, how fickle must one be who would spurn a friend in favour of a stranger who would try and assume his identity?

[jewels]

Muffit:
Great post. As others have said--you never disappoint. Your friend would have gotten the same response in my family or little town....it's something I really dislike, the deepest sign of how far we have to go to reach MLK's dream.

[Muffit]

Thank you so much, Corwwyn and Jewels! I so much appreciate you reading and your kind words.

I was hoping this would be a good time to post this, seeing as Dr. King's birthday is just a few days away, and I had been thinking of this person. And thank you Jewels for mentioning about your town. I am so looking forward to the day when we all see with our hearts rather than our eyes (hence my French sig line, "The eyes are blind, one must look with the heart").

Thank you both

[Ioraptor]

You know I never planned to post anything on this site, because I am a fan of the new series. I was reading these posts only to find news and story ideas and to determine what the controversy was all about. I used to love the old series when I was a kid but I witnessed so many unreasonable attack posts on the mini series fan site that soon all I could see were the old series faults. But the above post reminded me what I liked about the original. It was exciting, innocent, spiritual and technically cool. I hope there is room in movie land for both versions of Battlestar Galactica.
Best wishes to the fans of the old!

[BST]

Muffit,

Truly wonderful words. I will only add that I hope and pray that your personal, and our collective, dreams are both realized, in the near future.



BST

[Muffit]

Originally posted by Ioraptor
Best wishes to the fans of the old!

Hi Ioraptor! Thanks so much for reading, and best wishes to you too!

Hi BST! Thank you for always being so kind . I truly hope our dreams come true, what a wonderful day that would be!

I try to be a positive person and look for the good when I can find it. I understand the anger and feelings. Although to us Battlestar Galactica was more than a TV show sometimes it is good to take a step back and remember that a TV show is what it was. We, the fans care about the mythos and the plot.

To those that own it however it is nothing more than a revenue generating object. No different than an orange tree in an orchard.

The owners of Battlestar Galactica were upset when TOS ended but only because they spent a lot of money making it without getting the return they hoped. Some of the owners thought they would give the orange tree another chance to bare fruit and they made BSG1980. They weren't happy with it because it bore little fruit, not that the plot sucked. Now the owner went back to the orchard and started watering the tree again. The owner thinks oranges won't sell well so they grafted on a tangerine branch. They hope to sell a lot of tangelos at a good price. It looks like it might be baring some fruit after all but the investment still looks dicey.

The tree held our swing as little kids. As an old friend we like to see it watered, well pruned, and we liked to pluck the few oranges off the branches. It reminds us of happy times. Now that the tree is baring tangelos and the owners cut down our swing some are pretty angry. I even heard a friend or two say if they could they would climb the owners fence and burn down that tangelo tree. That would teach the owners a lesson. For me I like the taste of oranges best but a tangelo isn't half bad. Since the owners are giving me tangelos for free as long as they make a profit at the market I hope to get some more. If I'm lucky the tree will get strong again, and the non grafted branches will again grow oranges. If the tree looks healthy enough the owner might just get back into the orange market. I fear however that if the tangelo market fails him he may just plow under the whole orchard and sell the orchard to home developers.

[Dawg]

I love chocolate. I just finished a 3 Muskateers bar, in fact. Chocolate covers the nutrition bar I'll eat at about 4:00. Last night, I had the last piece in a box of chocolate meltaways I've been hoarding.

My absolute favorite is semi-sweet chocolate chips, the kind you put in cookies. I could (and do) eat them by the handful.

Then there's carob.

It looks more or less like chocolate. It's used more or less like chocolate. It melts more or less like chocolate.

But it really doesn't taste like chocolate.

That's because it's not chocolate, and nothing can make it chocolate. It's carob.

I don't want carob. I want chocolate. Carob won't do. It is, to my descriminating taste, inadequate to satisfy my chocolate jones.

I would rather do without than be obliged to settle for carob.

My sweet thoughts for the day.

I am
Dawg

[Muffit]

Hi Antelope! That's a nice analogy . It works for both the consumers/fans and the displaced workers/cast/crew/etc. As you put so well, we don't know if the mini is successful is a good thing or a bad thing for TOS fans - on one hand if it does well, that may bode well for other versions, such as a continuation, or it may cause them to feel no other version is warranted; if it does poorly, the converse may be true. It's so hard to say. The sad thing is, fate is so fickle and not within our ability to effect, except of course thru fan mail.

The best of both worlds would be if both versions could exist, so that nobody is disappointed. What so many of us see is truly untapped potential in a continuation - if even a third of the 65 million TOS viewers could be drawn in, that would really be a tremendous audience for the producers/advertisers. It's an edge-of-seat present tense of anxious waiting. It's so very hard to believe in something and not be able to test its veracity.

Thank you for your valuable insights, and I hope that your dreams may come true as well.

Affectionately,
Muffit

[Muffit]

Hi Dawg! That's funny you should mention carob and chocolate - I once did a musing (Chocolate Shock and BSG) cuz I feel the same way!

I adore semi sweet morsels too, especially with Seven Up. It's a wonderful snack late at night if you're sharing a book with your partner!

Thanks so much for your reply .

[shiningstar]

Me too. I loveeeeeeeeeeeee chocolate

[Muffit]

Shiningstar!

(True story) My wife's family is from Hawaii. I went to high school out there. Everytime my wife's family comes to visit they bring chocolate covered macadamia nuts. I love those things. I could (and have) eat a whole box in one sitting. Over time Hawaiian Host and the other makers decided to get creative and make some newer types of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. About 20 or so years ago they came out with "Maui caramacs". It's like the original but filled with caramel also. To me they're not as good as the original but I still like them. Now they also have "Maccrunch", which is the old version but the nuts are crunched up instead of whole. Finally they made a chocolate toffee covered macademia nut. The toffee version taste horrible to me. I would never pay for it. I can't understand why they made it or why some people seem to like it. When my relatives arrived recently with the variety package I thanked them for the lot, ate the originals, the caramacs, still haven't got to the maccrunches but plan to eat them but I gave away the toffee ones to friends that said they liked them. To me the toffee ones are not real macadamia covered chocolates in any way shape or form. I am glad to see however my friends enjoy them and I am also glad to see it help the Hawaiian Host franchise. I hope however next time my relatives come back they stick with TOCCM-the original chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

[Muffit]

That's neat Antelope. I know a lot of people (like my family) that like Macadamia nuts, especially chocolate coated. Sometime while growing up I lost my taste for nuts for some reason. We had a walnut tree in our backyard and used to feast on them. But sadly, I really only like pure chocolate now, kinda sad cuz I hear Macadamias are really good.

[Commander Cain]

[BST]

Originally posted by antelope526

For me I like the taste of oranges best but a tangelo isn't half bad.

antelope,

Nice analogy and you make your point very well. But, I have a question --

If you prefer oranges, why would you settle for a tangelo?

BST

[Muffit]

Originally posted by Commander Cain

Thanks Commander Cain!

I'm too poor to own my own orchard so I'll eat the free tangelos until the free oranges return. The freeze of 1980 killed off the rest of the orange trees in the orchard so I have been hungry for new oranges ever since.

I hear Mr. DeSanto has plans to plant a new orange tree but until it bares fruit the only tree in the orchard is owned by Ms. Hammer. She likes citrus but seems to have issues with oranges. I think she thinks tangelos are more hip.

[BST]

antelope,