Clambake (1967): Elvis Presley as an oil heir who becomes a water-ski instructor.
“That cannot be a real movie,” says Rupert. “That’s a collection of random words!”
“This from you?” says Nikki. “The professional diver/nightclub singer who schemes to find pirate gold?”
“All of that makes perfect sense in context,” says Rupert. “Um, doesn’t it?”
Nikki shakes her head.
“Oh no,” says Rupert, in dawning horror. “No!” A guitar falls into his hands; attractive girls in retro bikinis wheel palm trees onto the set.
“Why?” sobs Rupert, hips already jerking.
“The King is dead,” coos Nikki. “Long live the King.”
It takes Zach hours to realize he has a roommate.
“Vode?” croaks the little voice behind the curtain. He can hear a clicking call button, but nothing’s happening. “Vode, molim.”
Zach gets up and shuffles over, feet curling on cold tile. “Hi?” he says. “You need something?”
A grumpy little girl looks up, big eyes dark and hollow, a wide bandage across her torso. “Vode,” she mutters, and gestures to a carafe.
“Oh!” He pours her a glass of water; she drinks with both hands. Then she smiles.
“Listen,” says Zach. “I hope it’s clear I shot you completely on accident.”
The dogstar and the shepherd moon herd the stars into the sky. Magnetic fields are lush underhoof, this far from the naked eye. On Earth, Arecibo is listening for whispers. Hubble is lost in the deep. Galileo was tucked in a long time ago, and Hawking is fast asleep.
Spacegirl stops by to pet a stargrazer, close-cropping the velvet of night. “Play a song, shepherd?” she asks. He obliges, his harp strung with silver light.
She claps her hands, gunbelt askance, as the solar wind starts to sing. The stars shoot glances; a comet dances; and Saturn, as always, rings.
Dialing with a keypad is strange now, but some patterns your fingers remember.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” says Hester.
“Oh. You okay?”
“Can’t believe you still have this number.”
“They let you keep it when you transfer.”
Breathe.
“I’m in town,” says Hester.
“That’s great,” he says. “I’d love to see you, but look, this week…”
“You don’t have to say it.”
He doesn’t.
“I called out of courtesy,” she says, “so if we ran into each other, you’d know.”
“Maybe lunch.”
“Okay,” says Hester, “if there’s time,” and her fingers start to pick again at the fraying cuff of her shirt.
Messages encrypted in junk DNA are the stuff of yesteryear; Lurlene uses auctioneer steganography, planting her data in their throwaway patter and broadcasting in the clear over rural radio. Estate sales for receiving data, cattle and cars for sending. When the transmitter pauses for breath it means “STOP.”
Lurlene’s practically off the grid: Mallory doesn’t listen to much AM. She’s tried tuning into those numbers stations on one speaker with her code on the other, to see if they cancel out. (Not yet.) Information cannot be created or destroyed, says Hawking. Lurlene thinks about the ionosphere, and keeps her cover deep.
“Have the Mon Calamari cruisers arrived yet?” asks General Madine.
“Not yet,” says Princess Leia. “Admiral Ackbar, perhaps you’d like to hail the Mon Calamari on the comm?”
Ackbar looks annoyed, probably. “Hail whom?”
“Your planet’s contribution of the fleet,” says Princess Leia, looking up from the combat plotter. “You know, the Mon Calama–”
“Stop saying that!” yells Ackbar. “We’re not calamari! Calamari is a food you people eat! That’s like me asking for you to send a communique to the roast macaque!”
“Galactic Standard has lots of borrowed words,” chuckles Madine. “Just ask Darth Vader.”
“What?” says Luke Skywalker. “Why?”
Julie thinks the Executrix would be less frightening if her job were actually to kill people. Instead (as Julie finally worked out at 11) she ensures that their wills get carried out.
Whether she kills people who contest them is up for debate.
Her name is Herringbone and Julie’s been her ward since she was four: a hazy age marked by bad dreams and confusing faces. Some of those faces were almost definitely her parents. Their will must have been a tortuous puzzle, to have enforced custody of their daughter upon the reader; and someday, Julie knows, she’ll read it herself.
The Nostalgia Network has drifted from its core mission, abandoning the glorious future of segmented markets for another mishmash of reality reunions and made-for-irony monsters of the week.
Which, to be fair, is sort of what people get nostalgic for these days.
This week’s monster is a CGI capybara, currently represented by a yellow ball on a stick. Terence looked up capybaras on his phone and he’s not buying it.
“I actually sort of miss when they showed reruns,” he says to Annabeth, awaiting craft services.
“Of course you do,” she sighs. “Hindsight’s 20/20, but nostalgia’s got blinders on.”
The hook, in god-games, isn’t the destructive power or capriciousness. Sure, you can drop a volcano on Manhattan or fling your worshippers at distant islands, but so what? One might as well build a block city and kick it over in a raging second: fun, but not for long, and you have to clean it up.
No, Alejandro knows, it’s benevolence that addicts you. When else is doing good so easy, so clear, so quickly rewarded? If real kindness were like this, he thinks (drumming with pencils and wishing he was playing another turn), shit, he’d probably be a volunteer.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be repenting,” says Harlequin.
“Aren’t you one of those sexy people?” says the Ticktockman. “On the fronts of romance novels? And I’m some kind of repressive figure…”
“I think that’s a harlot, not a harlequin,” frowns Harlequin.
The Ticktockman has a face like a clock with gears behind it, probably. “Well,” he says, “now I want you to repent for doubting my vocabulary.”
“Okay. Sorry?”
The Ticktockman punches a card with his mouth, like clocks did in 1960 or whenever.
“This story is dumb,” says Harlequin.
“You haven’t even read it!” says the Ticktockman.